Aims

• To identify and study questions associated with the development of distributed systems and the communications and middleware protocols that support distributed applications.
• To support convergence of information processing systems, communication and networking technologies into a distributed infrastructure that is open for application to all members of the global society.
• To investigate rigorous methods applicable to the specification, verification, implementation and testing of distributed systems and applications.
• To support and promote the systematic use of these methods, and make them amenable to the practitioners, hence increasing awareness of formal methods in the distributed networking and computer networking areas at large.
• To bring together researchers, developers, and practitioners working in these areas to discuss recent innovative results and future directions by promoting and supporting the organization of meetings, workshops and conferences.
• To disseminate information and publications, foster an active participation of industry and encourage the transfer of knowledge between academia and industry.
• To encourage young researchers to enter this field.

Scope

This WG provides a framework for the launching and the continued organization of activities in areas that include:

• Formal Description Techniques: including rigorous models, methods and tools applicable to the design, specification, validation, verification, implementation, easy prototyping,
• efficiency evaluation, and testing of communicating systems and object-based distributed systems.
• Open Distributed Systems: including the design, implementation, deployment and evaluation of distributed systems platforms and architectures for networked environments and distributed applications.
• Quality of Service: including architectures, services, multimedia, operating systems and middleware in a networked or distributed environment.