Project: Instant Messaging and Presence protocols for notifying users about service availability
Network services (e.g. web services such as webCT, IP services, etc) are not always continuously available, and service providers often seek mechanisms to notify users about service availability, e.g. about planned outages, or about why service is currently unavailable and the estimated time of return of service. Structuring such notifications and sending them electronically allows user-end software to automatically filter out notifications that are not currently relevant to the user, and to retrieve previously irrelevant notifications to explain current network behaviour. In 2004, a thesis student developed a proprietary system for structuring and sending such notifications. However, to maximise the deployment of such a system, it is desirable that it be generalised to provide for notification of arbitrary services (e.g. a person being available/present, road traffic conditions being congested/free-flowing, etc) and to use standard protocols and structures for describing such events. Thus, the goal of this thesis in 2005 is to develop a system that uses Instant Messaging protocols (e.g. Jabber, or others supported by clients such as Gaim) to disseminate these notifications, and standard calendaring formats (e.g. RFC 3283/2445) for describing the time of the event so that it can be integrated with other events in calendaring software such as Outlook.
