Space-aware ambients and processes

Resource control has attracted increasing interest in foundational research on distributed systems. This paper focuses on space control and develops an analysis of space usage in the context of an ambient calculus with bounded capacities and weighed processes, where migration and activation require space. A type system controls the dynamics of the calculus by providing static guarantees that the intended capacity bounds are preserved throughout the computation. We investigate various term-level mechanisms to complement the typed control on the dynamics of space allocation and acquisition, and study their consequences on the semantic theory of the calculus. ? F. Barbanera acknowledges supported from MIUR project EOS, M. Bugliesi from EU-FET project ‘MyThS’ IST-2001-32617 and from MIUR Project n. 2005015785. M. Dezani-Ciancaglini from EU-FET project DART IST-2001-33477, and from MIUR Project McTafi, V. Sassone from EU-FET project ‘MIKADO’ IST-200132222. Preprint submitted to Elsevier Science 22 November 2006