Scout is a communication-oriented operating system targeted at network appliances; e.g., network cameras and disks, individual nodes in scalable servers, hand-held and portable devices, and network routers. One of the central ideas in Scout is the path abstraction, which is essentially the extension of a network connection into the host operating system. Scout makes the path its primary abstraction, with resource allocation, scheduling, optimizations, fault-isolation, and security done on a per-path basis. This talk motivates Scout's design, defines the path abstraction, and reports our experiences using Scout to build a variety of network appliances. It will also describe a recent effort to use Scout as the OS for an extensible IP router.

Larry Peterson is a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. Prior to joining Princeton, he was the Head of the Computer Science Department at the University of Arizona. His research focuses on end-to-end issues related to computer networks. He has been involved in the design and implementation of the x-kernel and Scout operating systems, and is a co-author of the textbook, Computer Networks: A Systems Approach. Dr. Peterson is the Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Computer Systems. He has also served on the editorial board for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking and on program committees for SOSP, SIGCOMM, OSDI, and ASPLOS. He is a member of the Internet's End-to-End research group.

A pre-meeting dinner with the speaker is held at 6 p.m. at the Rusty Scupper on Alexander Road in Princeton. If you would like to attend, please call the information number to record your reservation on the answering machine.

Princeton ACM / IEEE Computer Society meeting are open to the public. Students and their parents are welcome. There is no admission charge, and refreshments are served.