The Summit project is an ongoing exploration of open systems, and what kind of environments will help unify the systems in which we operate tomorrow. By coordinating networks, filesystems, security domains, distribution of computing resources and process communication, otherwise incompatable or mildly inter-operable systems can be thought of as one working environment. As a model for this type of heterogenious work space, Summit provides a series of services for coordination and communications. Because Summit runs on top of currently installed hardware and software, it doesn't require replacing any existing environments. The goal of the Summit project is both to provide a framework for a truly open system and to make it conceptually simple enough that it is accessable to anyone.

The Summit project was started in the fall of 1996, and is part of a three year exploration of open systems. It is being combined with research on past and present implementations and conceptualizations of open computing environments in an attempt to discuss what kinds of systems will become valuable in the future.

The Summit project started as a simple attempt to overcome the frustrations of working with systems that couldn't communicate on basic levels. Peter Shah and I started looking at some simple solutions to these barriers. James Todd joined us later that spring, and then Jeff Alexander joined on in the winter of '98.

Looking for a demo?

The system is curently working under Solaris, Linux, Rhapsody, WindowsNT and Windows95. There are also clients for each system (remember that many clients will need no platform specific code, and will be easy to move to any systems running summit). The API is accessable under C, C++ and Java. Other languages will be ready soon.

We're currently in the proccess of adding a new set of features, so we're not quite ready to make a demo freely available. If you're interested in seeing a working version, however, or just want to learn more, send mail to stp@cs.brown.edu, and we'll see what we can do.


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