Assimilator Introduction

Just a quick introduction to the Assimilator project that I have been working on. I will discuss it to some extent here as the project develops. Assimilator is and open source project hosted at SourceForge. It represents the next step in evolutionary development of distributed computing. It provides a platform for distributed application development which includes key capabilities required to execute distributed applications. Application development using this platform does not require development of handling the difficult aspects of distributed computing. The platform enables applications to be built as a collection of services that can be executed on a network where resources are available and may dynamically change. Service lookup and discovery, distributed events and transactions, service provisioning and deployment, and service management are all provided by the platform.

The open source environment allows free usage of the platform and encourages feedback from users on how to enhance features, extend capabilities and eradicate defects. Open source allows greater distribution of the platform hopefully leading to wider adoption of its use. Custom applications built with the platform will demonstrate platform capabilities and provide a means for individuals and organizations to generate revenue.

The primary goals of the project include:

• Develop a distributed computing platform capable of dynamically managing and monitoring services in a network.
• Develop the platform in and for the open source community to drive adoption of its use.
• Develop the platform with the intent that it can be used for easy development of distributed applications.

Network includes running across the internet and on any device connected to it. The current version executes in WANs and work is underway to get it working across the internet. At which point it becomes feasible to start building social network applications and gaming environments that utilize available resources across peered devices.

NEPOMUK

NEPOMUK or Networked Environment for Personal Ontology-based Management of unified Knowledge is a project I ran across that appears to have similar goals as I have for building self organizing community of information from the perspective of the individual and their devices (or tools).  In particular it’s goals include:

• supporting the knowledge life cycle, including articulation, organization, sharing and exchange of information;
• the management of all relevant desired  information through linking, browsing and tagging;
• knowledge communication across distribute social networked communities with capabilities for distributed search, storage and massive scaling.

It is an open source framework that can accommodate plug-in capabilities for contributions for those who wish to develop this kind of social networking capabilities. I have similar goals for Assimilator  which is a  platform for managing distributed services; services that can migrate, work in groups with dependencies and can be used to build knowledge management tools for social networks.

Achieving the goal of allowing individuals to manage their own information in their own context using their own personal tools will require a lightweight framework that accommodates and manages services or small components which collaborate in a dynamically changing environment  distributed across the internet. I believe NEPOMUK is on the right track. I hope I am as well.