Grid and cooperative computing has emerged as a new frontier of information tech- logy. It aims to share and coordinate distributed and heterogeneous network resources forbetterperformanceandfunctionalitythatcanotherwisenotbeachieved.Thisvolume contains the papers presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Grid and Coope- tive Computing, GCC 2003, which was held in Shanghai, P.R. China, during December 7-10, 2003. GCC is designed to serve as a forum to present current and future work as well as to exchange research ideas among researchers, developers, practitioners, and usersinGridcomputing, Webservicesandcooperativecomputing, includingtheoryand applications. For this workshop, we received over 550 paper submissions from 22 countries and regions. All the papers were peer-reviewed in depth and qualitatively graded on their relevance, originality, signi?cance, presentation, and the overall appropriateness of their acceptance. Any concerns raised were discussed by the program committee. The or- nizing committee selected 176 papers for conference presentation (full papers) and 173 submissions for poster presentation (short papers).The papers included herein represent the forefront of research from China, USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Aust- lia, India, Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Norway, Greece, Iran, Turkey, Oman, Pakistan and other countries. More than 600 attendees participated in the technical section and the exhibition of the worksho

Grid and cooperative computing has emerged as a new frontier of information tech- logy. It aims to share and coordinate distributed and heterogeneous network resources forbetterperformanceandfunctionalitythatcanotherwisenotbeachieved.Thisvolume contains the papers presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Grid and Coope- tive Computing, GCC 2003, which was held in Shanghai, P.R. China, during December 7-10, 2003. GCC is designed to serve as a forum to present current and future work as well as to exchange research ideas among researchers, developers, practitioners, and usersinGridcomputing,Webservicesandcooperativecomputing,includingtheoryand applications. For this workshop, we received over 550 paper submissions from 22 countries and regions. All the papers were peer-reviewed in depth and qualitatively graded on their relevance, originality, signi?cance, presentation, and the overall appropriateness of their acceptance. Any concerns raised were discussed by the program committee. The or- nizing committee selected 176 papers for conference presentation (full papers) and 173 submissions for poster presentation (short papers).The papers included herein represent the forefront of research from China, USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Aust- lia, India, Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Norway, Greece, Iran, Turkey, Oman, Pakistan and other countries. More than 600 attendees participated in the technical section and the exhibition of the workshop.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) uses services as the baseline for developing new architectures and applications, as networks are built specifically to satisfy service requirements. Most services are currently handled over different networks, but newer services will soon require cross-network support. Architecting the Telecommunication Evolution: Toward Converged Network Services outlines the challenges of providing crossover services and the new architectures and protocols that will enable convergence between circuit- and packet-switched networks. Taking a standards-based approach to converged services, this book lays a foundation for SOA in telecommunications. The authors begin by outlining the development of Internet telephony, focusing on how to use the respective benefits of the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) and the Internet to create and implement more value-added services. These two eminent specialists first examine services that originate in the Internet and take advantage of PSTN services, and then explore how discrete events on the PSTN can be used as an impetus to creating services on the Internet. They conclude with a discussion on how this convergence creates smart spaces in the telecoms domain. Including eight valuable appendices that will aid in the implementation of converged services, Architecting the Telecommunication Evolution is the first book of its kind to offer a survey as well as a practical roadmap to integrating modern networks to achieve better performance and new functionality.