A decentralized multi-agent based network management system for ICT4D networks
- Authors: Matebese, Sithembiso
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Microsoft� Word 2010
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc (Computer Science)
- Identifier: vital:11398 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1019853
- Description: Network management is fundamental for assuring high quality services required by each user for the effective utilization of network resources. In this research, we propose the use of a decentralized, flexible and scalable Multi-Agent based system to monitor and manage rural broadband networks adaptively and efficiently. This mechanism is not novel as it has been used for high-speed, large-scale and distributed networks. This research investigates how software agents could collaborate in the process of managing rural broadband networks and developing an autonomous decentralized network management mechanism. In rural networks, network management is a challenging task because of lack of a reliable power supply, greater geographical distances, topographical barriers, and lack of technical support as well as computer repair facilities. This renders the network monitoring function complex and difficult. Since software agents are goal-driven, this research aims at developing a distributed management system that efficiently diagnoses errors on a given network and autonomously invokes effective changes to the network based on the goals defined on system agents. To make this possible, the Siyakhula Living Lab network was used as the research case study and existing network management system was reviewed and used as the basis for the proposed network management system. The proposed network management system uses JADE framework, Hyperic-Sigar API, Java networking programming and JESS scripting language to implement reasoning software agents. JADE and Java were used to develop the system agents with FIPA specifications. Hyperic-Sigar was used to collect the device information, Jpcap was used for collecting device network information and JESS for developing a rule engine for agents to reason about the device and network state. Even though the system is developed with Siyakhula Living Lab considerations, technically it can be used in any small-medium network because it is adaptable and scalable to various network infrastructure requirements. The proposed system consists of two types of agents, the MasterAgent and the NodeAgent. The MasterAgent resides on the device that has the agent platform and NodeAgent resides on devices connected to the network. The MasterAgent provides the network administrator with graphical and web user interfaces so that they can view network analysis and statistics. The agent platform provides agents with the executing environment and every agent, when started, is added to this platform. This system is platform independent as it has been tested on Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. The implemented system has been found to provide a suitable network management function to rural broadband networks that is: scalable in that more node agents can be added to the system to accommodate more devices in the network; autonomous in the ability to reason and execute actions based on the defined rules; fault-tolerant through being designed as a decentralized platform thereby reducing the Single Point of Failure (SPOF) in the system.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Matebese, Sithembiso
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Microsoft� Word 2010
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc (Computer Science)
- Identifier: vital:11398 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1019853
- Description: Network management is fundamental for assuring high quality services required by each user for the effective utilization of network resources. In this research, we propose the use of a decentralized, flexible and scalable Multi-Agent based system to monitor and manage rural broadband networks adaptively and efficiently. This mechanism is not novel as it has been used for high-speed, large-scale and distributed networks. This research investigates how software agents could collaborate in the process of managing rural broadband networks and developing an autonomous decentralized network management mechanism. In rural networks, network management is a challenging task because of lack of a reliable power supply, greater geographical distances, topographical barriers, and lack of technical support as well as computer repair facilities. This renders the network monitoring function complex and difficult. Since software agents are goal-driven, this research aims at developing a distributed management system that efficiently diagnoses errors on a given network and autonomously invokes effective changes to the network based on the goals defined on system agents. To make this possible, the Siyakhula Living Lab network was used as the research case study and existing network management system was reviewed and used as the basis for the proposed network management system. The proposed network management system uses JADE framework, Hyperic-Sigar API, Java networking programming and JESS scripting language to implement reasoning software agents. JADE and Java were used to develop the system agents with FIPA specifications. Hyperic-Sigar was used to collect the device information, Jpcap was used for collecting device network information and JESS for developing a rule engine for agents to reason about the device and network state. Even though the system is developed with Siyakhula Living Lab considerations, technically it can be used in any small-medium network because it is adaptable and scalable to various network infrastructure requirements. The proposed system consists of two types of agents, the MasterAgent and the NodeAgent. The MasterAgent resides on the device that has the agent platform and NodeAgent resides on devices connected to the network. The MasterAgent provides the network administrator with graphical and web user interfaces so that they can view network analysis and statistics. The agent platform provides agents with the executing environment and every agent, when started, is added to this platform. This system is platform independent as it has been tested on Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. The implemented system has been found to provide a suitable network management function to rural broadband networks that is: scalable in that more node agents can be added to the system to accommodate more devices in the network; autonomous in the ability to reason and execute actions based on the defined rules; fault-tolerant through being designed as a decentralized platform thereby reducing the Single Point of Failure (SPOF) in the system.
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Enhancement of the usability of SOA services for novice users
- Authors: Yalezo, Sabelo
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc (Computer Science)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/822 , vital:26500
- Description: Recently, the automation of service integration has provided a significant advantage in delivering services to novice users. This art of integrating various services is known as Service Composition and its main purpose is to simplify the development process for web applications and facilitates reuse of services. It is one of the paradigms that enables services to end-users (i.e.service provisioning) through the outsourcing of web contents and it requires users to share and reuse services in more collaborative ways. Most service composers are effective at enabling integration of web contents, but they do not enable universal access across different groups of users. This is because, the currently existing content aggregators require complex interactions in order to create web applications (e.g., Web Service Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL)) as a result not all users are able to use such web tools. This trend demands changes in the web tools that end-users use to gain and share information, hence this research uses Mashups as a service composition technique to allow novice users to integrate publicly available Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) services, where there is a minimal active web application development. Mashups being the platforms that integrate disparate web Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to create user defined web applications; presents a great opportunity for service provisioning. However, their usability for novice users remains invalidated since Mashup tools are not easy to use they require basic programming skills which makes the process of designing and creating Mashups difficult. This is because Mashup tools access heterogeneous web contents using public web APIs and the process of integrating them become complex since web APIs are tailored by different vendors. Moreover, the design of Mashup editors is unnecessary complex; as a result, users do not know where to start when creating Mashups. This research address the gap between Mashup tools and usability by the designing and implementing a semantically enriched Mashup tool to discover, annotate and compose APIs to improve the utilization of SOA services by novice users. The researchers conducted an analysis of the already existing Mashup tools to identify challenges and weaknesses experienced by novice Mashup users. The findings from the requirement analysis formulated the system usability requirements that informed the design and implementation of the proposed Mashup tool. The proposed architecture addressed three layers: composition, annotation and discovery. The researchers developed a simple Mashup tool referred to as soa-Services Provisioner (SerPro) that allowed novice users to create web application flexibly. Its usability and effectiveness was validated. The proposed Mashup tool enhanced the usability of SOA services, since data analysis and results showed that it was usable to novice users by scoring a System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 72.08. Furthermore, this research discusses the research limitations and future work for further improvements.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Yalezo, Sabelo
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc (Computer Science)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/822 , vital:26500
- Description: Recently, the automation of service integration has provided a significant advantage in delivering services to novice users. This art of integrating various services is known as Service Composition and its main purpose is to simplify the development process for web applications and facilitates reuse of services. It is one of the paradigms that enables services to end-users (i.e.service provisioning) through the outsourcing of web contents and it requires users to share and reuse services in more collaborative ways. Most service composers are effective at enabling integration of web contents, but they do not enable universal access across different groups of users. This is because, the currently existing content aggregators require complex interactions in order to create web applications (e.g., Web Service Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL)) as a result not all users are able to use such web tools. This trend demands changes in the web tools that end-users use to gain and share information, hence this research uses Mashups as a service composition technique to allow novice users to integrate publicly available Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) services, where there is a minimal active web application development. Mashups being the platforms that integrate disparate web Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to create user defined web applications; presents a great opportunity for service provisioning. However, their usability for novice users remains invalidated since Mashup tools are not easy to use they require basic programming skills which makes the process of designing and creating Mashups difficult. This is because Mashup tools access heterogeneous web contents using public web APIs and the process of integrating them become complex since web APIs are tailored by different vendors. Moreover, the design of Mashup editors is unnecessary complex; as a result, users do not know where to start when creating Mashups. This research address the gap between Mashup tools and usability by the designing and implementing a semantically enriched Mashup tool to discover, annotate and compose APIs to improve the utilization of SOA services by novice users. The researchers conducted an analysis of the already existing Mashup tools to identify challenges and weaknesses experienced by novice Mashup users. The findings from the requirement analysis formulated the system usability requirements that informed the design and implementation of the proposed Mashup tool. The proposed architecture addressed three layers: composition, annotation and discovery. The researchers developed a simple Mashup tool referred to as soa-Services Provisioner (SerPro) that allowed novice users to create web application flexibly. Its usability and effectiveness was validated. The proposed Mashup tool enhanced the usability of SOA services, since data analysis and results showed that it was usable to novice users by scoring a System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 72.08. Furthermore, this research discusses the research limitations and future work for further improvements.
- Full Text:
Implementation of a facebook crawler for opinion monitoring and trend analysis purposes: a case study of government service delivery in Dwesa
- Mfenyana, Sinesihle Ignetious
- Authors: Mfenyana, Sinesihle Ignetious
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Online social networks -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Social media -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Internet -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Web-based user interfaces -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , User interfaces (Computer systems) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc (Computer Science)
- Identifier: vital:11394 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1016067 , Online social networks -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Social media -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Internet -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Web-based user interfaces -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , User interfaces (Computer systems) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: The Internet has shifted from the Web 1.0 era to the Web 2.0 era. In the contemporary era of web 2.0, the Internet is being used to build and reflect social relationships among people who share similar interests and activities. This is done through services such as Social Networking Sites (Facebook, Twitter etc.) and the web blogs. Currently, there is a very high usage of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) and blogs where people share their views, opinions, and thoughts. This leads to the production of a lot of data by people who post such content on SNSs. As a result, SNSs and blogs become the ideal platforms for opinion monitoring and the trend analysis. These SNSs and Blogs could be used by service providers for tracking what the public thinks or requires. The reason being, having such knowledge can help in decision making and future planning. If service providers can keep track of such views, opinions or thoughts with regard to the services they provide, they can better their understanding about the public or clients’ needs and improve the provision of relevant services. This research project presents a system prototype for performing opinion monitoring and trend analysis on Facebook. The proposed system crawl Facebook, indexes the data and provides user interface (UI) where end users can search and see the trending of a topics of their choice. The system prototype could also be used to check the trending topics without having to search. The main objective of this research project was to develop a framework that will contribute in improving the way government officials, companies or any service providers and normal citizens communicate regarding services they provide. This research project is premised on the conceptualization that if the government officials, companies or any service providers can keep track of the citizen’s opinions, views and thoughts with regards to services they provide it can help improve the delivery of such services. This research and the implementation of the trend analysis tool is undertaken in the context of the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), an Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) intervention for Dwesa marginalized community.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Mfenyana, Sinesihle Ignetious
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Online social networks -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Social media -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Internet -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Web-based user interfaces -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , User interfaces (Computer systems) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc (Computer Science)
- Identifier: vital:11394 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1016067 , Online social networks -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Social media -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Internet -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Web-based user interfaces -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , User interfaces (Computer systems) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: The Internet has shifted from the Web 1.0 era to the Web 2.0 era. In the contemporary era of web 2.0, the Internet is being used to build and reflect social relationships among people who share similar interests and activities. This is done through services such as Social Networking Sites (Facebook, Twitter etc.) and the web blogs. Currently, there is a very high usage of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) and blogs where people share their views, opinions, and thoughts. This leads to the production of a lot of data by people who post such content on SNSs. As a result, SNSs and blogs become the ideal platforms for opinion monitoring and the trend analysis. These SNSs and Blogs could be used by service providers for tracking what the public thinks or requires. The reason being, having such knowledge can help in decision making and future planning. If service providers can keep track of such views, opinions or thoughts with regard to the services they provide, they can better their understanding about the public or clients’ needs and improve the provision of relevant services. This research project presents a system prototype for performing opinion monitoring and trend analysis on Facebook. The proposed system crawl Facebook, indexes the data and provides user interface (UI) where end users can search and see the trending of a topics of their choice. The system prototype could also be used to check the trending topics without having to search. The main objective of this research project was to develop a framework that will contribute in improving the way government officials, companies or any service providers and normal citizens communicate regarding services they provide. This research project is premised on the conceptualization that if the government officials, companies or any service providers can keep track of the citizen’s opinions, views and thoughts with regards to services they provide it can help improve the delivery of such services. This research and the implementation of the trend analysis tool is undertaken in the context of the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), an Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) intervention for Dwesa marginalized community.
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Investigation of the NFC technology for mobile payments and the development of a prototype payment application in the context of marginalized rural areas
- Authors: Gurajena, Caroline
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc (Computer Science)
- Identifier: vital:11401 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1020243
- Description: Both communication, and the methods and tools of commerce have evolved over time through the invention of new technologies. The latest of these technologies are mobile devices and electronic commerce respectively. The combination of these two technologies has resulted in the creation of electronic commerce which also enables mobile payments. Mobile payments (mpayments) are enabled by many technologies with Near Field Communication (NFC) being the most recent one. NFC is a wireless technology that enables mobile devices in close proximity to exchange data. The mobile device has already been enthusiastically accepted by the customers and they carry it with them wherever they go and this makes it a good device for providing a payment method alternative. This research looks at contactless mobile payment as a payment method. Customers in marginalized rural areas lack a payment alternative to cash hence in this research we are investigating and proposing the use of a NFC enabled mobile payment application for Marginalized Rural Areas. This research extensively evaluates and assesses the potential of using NFC enabled m-payments in Marginalized Rural Areas in South Africa by carrying out an investigation of the technology and its acceptance by customers. The investigation of the technology included implementation of a prototype application which was used to introduce the technology to the consumers. The customer acceptance of the NFC enabled mobile payments was evaluated using the Technology Acceptance model (TAM). The model was modified to suit the context of this study by adding more constructs. This research concluded that Near Field Communication enabled m-payments have great potential to be used and accepted by people in the marginalized rural areas.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Gurajena, Caroline
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc (Computer Science)
- Identifier: vital:11401 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1020243
- Description: Both communication, and the methods and tools of commerce have evolved over time through the invention of new technologies. The latest of these technologies are mobile devices and electronic commerce respectively. The combination of these two technologies has resulted in the creation of electronic commerce which also enables mobile payments. Mobile payments (mpayments) are enabled by many technologies with Near Field Communication (NFC) being the most recent one. NFC is a wireless technology that enables mobile devices in close proximity to exchange data. The mobile device has already been enthusiastically accepted by the customers and they carry it with them wherever they go and this makes it a good device for providing a payment method alternative. This research looks at contactless mobile payment as a payment method. Customers in marginalized rural areas lack a payment alternative to cash hence in this research we are investigating and proposing the use of a NFC enabled mobile payment application for Marginalized Rural Areas. This research extensively evaluates and assesses the potential of using NFC enabled m-payments in Marginalized Rural Areas in South Africa by carrying out an investigation of the technology and its acceptance by customers. The investigation of the technology included implementation of a prototype application which was used to introduce the technology to the consumers. The customer acceptance of the NFC enabled mobile payments was evaluated using the Technology Acceptance model (TAM). The model was modified to suit the context of this study by adding more constructs. This research concluded that Near Field Communication enabled m-payments have great potential to be used and accepted by people in the marginalized rural areas.
- Full Text:
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