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About

About

I am Associate Professor at Universidade do Minho at the HASLab/ INESC TEC. My academic life revolves much around Systems Software. First it was compiler design for vector processor, then operating systems for multiple processors, then middleware and system services for mobile and distributed systems. Coming from a computer science group with emphasis on program correctness, I always have been curious about the role of performance (efficiency, timeliness, availability, etc.) on the architecture, design and configuration of software systems.

I am also co-founder of Eurotux SA, a company with focus on open software and systems and network administration. Since then it has evolved into and highly-scalable, cloud-based systems support.

Interest
Topics
Details

Details

  • Name

    Francisco Moura
  • Role

    Senior Researcher
  • Since

    01st November 2011
Publications

2006

Evaluating certification protocols in the partial database state machine

Authors
Sousa, A; Correia, A; Moura, F; Pereira, J; Oliveira, R;

Publication
First International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, Proceedings

Abstract
Partial replication is an alluring technique to ensure the reliability of very large and geographically distributed databases while, at the same time, offering good performance. By correctly exploiting access locality most transactions become confined to a small subset of the database replicas thus reducing processing, storage access and communication overhead associated with replication. The advantages of partial replication have however to be weighted against the added complexity that is required to manage it. In fact, if the chosen replica configuration prevents the local execution of transactions or if the overhead of consistency protocols offsets the savings of locality, potential gains cannot be realized. These issues are heavily dependent on the application used for evaluation and render simplistic benchmarks useless. In this paper, we present a detailed analysis of Partial Database State Machine (PDBSM) replication by comparing alternative partial replication protocols with full replication. This is done using a realistic scenario based on a detailed network simulator and access patterns from an industry standard database benchmark. The results obtained allow us to identify the best configuration for typical on-line transaction processing applications.

2005

Testing the dependability and performance of group communication based database replication protocols

Authors
Sousa, A; Pereira, J; Soares, L; Correia, A; Rocha, L; Oliveira, R; Moura, F;

Publication
2005 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DEPENDABLE SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS, PROCEEDINGS

Abstract
Database replication based on group communication systems has recently been proposed as an efficient and resilient solution for large-scale data management. However, its evaluation has been conducted either on simplistic simulation models, which fail to assess concrete implementations, or on complete system implementations which are costly to test with realistic large-scale scenarios. This paper presents a tool that combines implementations of replication and communication protocols under study with simulated network, database engine, and traffic generator models. Replication components can therefore be subjected to realistic large scale loads in a variety of scenarios, including fault-injection, while at the same time providing global observation and control. The paper shows first how the model is configured and validated to closely reproduce the behavior of a real system, and then how it is applied, allowing us to derive interesting conclusions both on replication and communication protocols and on their implementations.

2005

Group-based replication of on-line transaction processing servers

Authors
Correia, A; Sousa, A; Soares, L; Pereira, J; Moura, F; Oliveira, R;

Publication
DEPENDABLE COMPUTING, PROCEEDINGS

Abstract
Several techniques for database replication using group communication have recently been proposed, namely, the Database State Machine, PostgresR, and the NODO protocol. Although all rely on a totally ordered multicast for consistency, they differ substantially on how multicast is used. This results in different performance trade-offs which are hard to compare as each protocol is presented using a different load scenario and evaluation method. In this paper we evaluate the suitability of such protocols for replication of On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) applications in clusters of servers and over wide area networks. This is achieved by implementing them using a common infra-structure and by using a standard workload. The results allows us to select the best protocol regarding performance and scalability in a demanding but realistic usage scenario.

2002

Optimistic total order in wide area networks

Authors
Sousa, A; Pereira, J; Moura, F; Oliveira, R;

Publication
21ST IEEE SYMPOSIUM ON RELIABLE DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS, PROCEEDINGS

Abstract
Total order multicast greatly simplifies the implementation of fault-tolerant services using the replicated state machine approach. The additional latency of total ordering can be masked by taking advantage of spontaneous ordering observed in LANs: A tentative delivery allows the application to proceed in parallel with the ordering protocol. The effectiveness of the technique rests on the optimistic assumption that a large share of correctly ordered tentative deliveries offsets the cost of undoing the effect of mistakes. This paper proposes a simple technique which enables the usage of optimistic delivery also in WANs with much larger transmission delays where the optimistic assumption does not normally hold. Our proposal exploits local clocks and the stability of network delays to reduce the mistakes in the ordering of tentative deliveries. An experimental evaluation of a modified sequencer-based protocol is presented, illustrating the usefulness of the approach in fault-tolerant database management.

2001

A MOBILE-AGENT BASED ARCHITECTURE FOR VIRTUAL ENTERPRISES

Authors
Brito, L; Neves, J; Moura, F;

Publication
E-BUSINESS AND VIRTUAL ENTERPRISES: MANAGING BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS COOPERATION

Abstract
Emerging technologies that allow a two-way communication between companies, or among companies and their customers, are changing the rules of the market, facilitating the emergence of virtual entities that have to be supported by some kind of platform. Making it is the main objective of this work, materialized in a Mobile Agent Architecture (MAA) which supports the emerging world of the m-Commerce (mobile-Commerce): the MAgnUM architecture, The MAA's development was based on the principles of process and knowledge abstraction, compositionality, reuse, formal semantics, formal evaluation, and security.