Systems Laboratory

About the Systems Laboratory

Marquette's Systems Laboratory, under the direction of Dr. Dennis Brylow in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, is housed on the third floor of Cudahy Hall.

The lab creates new tools and methods for building and studying complex computer systems. Our emphasis is on embedded, real-time, and network systems, with strong ties to the electrical and computer engineering community, and the computer science education community. Current projects include:

1. Experimental Embedded Networking Platform. Creation of laboratory infrastructure and software for research and education in the area of embedded networking appliances, particularly wireless routers and IP telephony. Collaboration with Cisco Systems Advanced Research Division.

2. Experimental Embedded Operating System Laboratory. Creation of laboratory infrastructure and software for research and education in area of embedded operating systems. Collaboration with University of Buffalo and University of Mississippi, with funding from the National Science Founcation.

3. Embedded Software Transactional Memory. Exploration of an innovative transactional memory model for guaranteeing process synchronization in embedded operating systems. Collaboration with Intel Research.

The Systems Lab will host three undergraduate REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) students in summer 2010, funded by the MU's College of Arts and Sciences. They will be working on ports of the Embedded Xinu operating system to new embedded platforms, embedded network emulation, and multicore embedded systems.

See the MSCS Research Labs page for more research laboratories in our department.

Publications

Conference Proceedings and Journals

Dennis Brylow and Kyle Thurow. Hands-on Networking Labs With Embedded Routers. In Proceedings of SIGCSE 2011: The 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 399-404, Dallas, Texas, March 2011. (link)

Matt Netkow and Dennis Brylow. Xest: An Automated Framework for Regression Testing of Embedded Software. In Proceedings of WESE 2010: 6th Workshop on Embedded Systems Education, pages 40-47, Scottsdale, Arizona, October 2010. (link)

Adam Mallen and Dennis Brylow. Compiler Construction With A Dash of Concurrency and An Embedded Twist. In Proceedings of SPLASH 2010: Systems, Programming, Languages, and Applications: Software for Humanity (formerly OOPSLA) Educators' and Trainers' Symposium, pages 161-168, Reno, Nevada, October 2010. (link)

Dennis Brylow and Bina Ramamurthy. Nexos: A Next Generation Embedded Systems Laboratory, In Proceedings of WESE 2008: 4th Workshop on Embedded Systems Education, pages 10-17, Atlanta, Georgia, October 2008. (link)
Extended version in SIGBED Review, Volume 6, Number 1, January 2009. (link)

Dennis Brylow. An Experimental Laboratory Environment for Teaching Embedded Operating Systems, In Proceedings of SIGCSE 2008: The 39th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 192-196, Portland, Oregon, March 2008. (link)

Dennis Brylow. An Experimental Laboratory Environment for Teaching Embedded Hardware Systems, In Proceedings of WCAE 2007: Workshop on Computer Architecture Education, pages 44-51, San Diego, California, June 2007. (link)

Posters and Undergraduate Research

Kyle Thurow and Dennis Brylow. A Network Emulator on Embedded Xinu. Poster presentation and research talk presented at SIGCSE 2010 ACM Student Research Competition, undergraduate division, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 2010. Kyle placed in the top five and advanced to the semi-finals round.

Gabe Van Eyck and Dennis Brylow. Xinu as a Multi-Core Operating System on the PlayStation 3. Poster presentation at SIGCSE 2010 ACM Student Research Competition, undergraduate division, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 2010.

Aaron Gember and Dennis Brylow. Real-Time TCP Extensions. Poster presentation and research talk presented at SIGCSE 2009 ACM Student Research Competition, undergraduate division, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Aaron advanced to semi-finals, placed in top three finalists, and advanced to the grand finals.

Dennis Brylow. Experimental Operating System Lab On A Dime. SIGCSE 2007: Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Covington, Kentucky, March 2007. (link).

Workshops

Paul Ruth and Dennis Brylow. Teaching With Embedded Xinu. Workshop accepted at ACMSE 2010: The 48th ACM Southeast Conference, Oxford, Mississippi, April 2010.

Dennis Brylow and Paul Ruth. Teaching With Embedded Xinu. Workshop accepted at SIGCSE 2010: The 41st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 2010.

Lab Equipment

The Systems Laboratory is populated with dual-headed Linux boxes running the latest version of Fedora Linux. Other workstations in the lab include a dual-core Apple G5 running OS X, and several multi-core boxes for higher-end computation.

The Xinu Laboratory component of the Systems Lab includes a pool of 24 WRT54GL wireless routers organized into a managed embedded backend pool, as well as smaller quantities of half a dozen other router types. Embedded development kits available include the Freescale/Motorola 68HC12 Dragon12 board, the Atmel AT91 Series ARM Thumb AT91EB40A board, the ATmega169 Butterfly, a Zilog Z86 Emulator Z86CCP01ZEM, and the Zilog Z8 Encore XP Dev Kit Z8F04A28100KIT-C.

The Systems Lab includes both a private research network with our own gateway and firewall, and connections to each of the MSCS department production networks. The Lab also hosts Subversion, Trac, and Web service for the Marquette Student ACM Chapter, the Marquette University Linux Users Group, and a stratum 2 NTP server for campus.

Lab Personnel

Current Students

The Xinu Team in Summer 2009.

From left, Kyle Thurow, Dan Mahoney, Aaron Gember, Mike Schultz, Zachary Lund, Dr. Dennis Brylow, Ryan Berg, and Joe Pintozzi. Not pictured: Adam Koehler and Paul Spillane.

Alumni

Mike Schultz, M.S. 2009. Now at Washington University in St. Louis doctoral program.

Tim Blattner, B.S. 2009. Now at University of Maryland - Baltimore County doctoral program.

Aaron Gember, B.S. 2009. Now at University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral program.

Matt Netkow, B.S. 2009. Now works as a developer for The SAVO Group.

Adam Mallen, B.S. 2009. Still at Marquette pursuing a PhD in Math, sitting at the same computer in the Systems Lab, annoying a new crop of XINU researchers.

Adam Koehler, M.S. 2010. Now at University of California Riverside doctoral program.