King's pioneers new generation software
Posted on 25/11/2010
A team of computer scientists in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London is developing innovative software which could significantly improve the quality and reliability of cloud computing, thanks to a prestigious funding award.
King’s is part of a consortium of partners that have been awarded a European Union Marie Curie Initial Training Network award of €5 million. King’s will receive €800,000 of funding.
This award is enabling a team of leading computer scientists at King’s to develop software that will make websites and internet-based services more flexible, reliable and secure under pressure.
Cloud computing – where services and applications are hosted and accessed on-demand through the internet – is the next big thing in the technology world. As the trend towards cloud computing gathers momentum, a software infrastructure that can cope under stress will be vital.
For services within the ‘cloud’ to react successfully and reconfigure to ‘follow’ a person moving between the home and office - intuitively knowing what their requirements will be - the software must be able to adapt itself and deal with demand.
The team at King’s,led by Dr Iman Poernomo, is using mathematical programming to create a flexible software model, which would make cloud computing more reliable as the user moves between locations and services.
Not only will the software have benefits for cloud computing, but software that reacts and rearranges itself to cope when demand is high will generally make websites safer and less likely to crash at busy times.
This will have a significant impact for consumers. For example, when an airline company goes on strike, often their website cannot cope with the volume of online visitors. This means that some people are not able to access the information they urgently need.
Dr Iman Poernamo, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at King’s, said: ‘Our aim is to use mathematics to make software better, more reliable and safer, particularly as we move towards a new era of cloud computing. Having a framework in which information clouds are secure, safe, trusted and fast will be crucial, and this is what we are working towards.
‘I am extremely proud at my team’s efforts in breaking new ground toward this goal, and excited about where this might lead us in terms of the future of software programming.’
The development project is expected to run for four years.
Notes to editors
The other partners in the grant consortium are: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT); South East European Research Centre; Université de Rennes 1; Charles University Prague; CAS Software AG; and SingularLogic Information Systems and Software Applications.
King's College London
King's College London is one of the top 25 universities in the world (2010 QS international world rankings), The Sunday Times 'University of the Year 2010/11' and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King's has nearly 23,000 students (of whom more than 8,600 are graduate students) from nearly 140 countries, and some 5,500 employees. King's is in the second phase of a £1 billion redevelopment programme which is transforming its estate.
King's has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.
King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine, nursing and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres.
King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King's Health Partners. King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world's leading research-led universities and three of London's most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit: www.kingshealthpartners.org.
For further information please contact Emma Reynolds, Press Officer at King’s College London, on 0207 848 4334 or email emma.reynolds@kcl.ac.uk