Staff Profile

Prof. Mark Little was previously a Visiting Research Fellow at the School and was very successful in providing masters project placements at Red Hat. As a visiting Professor he now has a very senior and influential role within Red Hat (CTO of middleware division). Prof. Little is also responsible for expanding Red Hat's R&D work on Cloud Computing at Newcastle. He has recently hired two staff (Newcastle Postgraduates) to work full-time on collaborative research projects proposed by Prof. Santosh Shrivastava and Prof. Paul Watson. This activity is expected to expand, with the creation of Red Hal's first R&D centre outside the USA.

As a result of academic study and industrial experience Prof. Little has become an expert on Web Services, Distributed Transaction Technology and Reliable Middleware as well as how to produce world-class products. A sound commercial background and strategic focus gives clear direction and definitive guidelines for developing, releasing and supporting new products beyond a working concept. As a director of two start-up companies, he was actively involved in their success: his first company, Arjuna Solutions, was acquired by Bluestone Software, whilst his second company, Arjuna Technologies, remains independent and has continued to grow. Prof. Little has been involved in the business development side of both companies and provided the technological lead throughout.

Prof. Little carried out a research PhD in the area of "Object Replication in Distributed Systems" at the Newcastle University. This involved categorising the various types of replication protocol, and differentiating between data and object replication. The result was the design and implementation of a suite of replication protocols, each of which could tolerate a different class of failure conditions, offering trade-offs between fault-tolerance and performance. This work was fully integrated into the Arjuna system to provide its high-availability characteristics. He also attained a BSc First Class Joint Honours degree in Physics and Computing Science from Newcastle University.

• Little MC, Shrivastava SK, Wheater SM. Another look at the middleware for dependable distributed computing. Journal of Internet Services and Applications 2012, 3(1), 95-105.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. The Evolution of the Arjuna Transaction Processing System. In: Jones, C.B., Lloyd, J.L, ed. Dependable and Historic Computing. Berlin; New York: Springer-Verlag, 2011, pp.323-343.
• Machulak M, Little MC, Halliday JJ. Metadata Support for Transactional Web Services. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 1158.
• Kistijantoro AI, Morgan G, Shrivastava SK, Little MC. Enhancing an Application Server to Support Available Components. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 2008, 34(4), 531-545.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. The Evolution of a Transaction Processing System. In: 11th Biennial High Performance Transaction Systems Workshop (HPTS2005). 2005, Pacific Grove, California: The Standish Group.
• Kistijantoro AI, Morgan G, Shrivastava SK, Little MC. Component Replication in Distributed Systems: a Case study using Enterprise Java Beans. In: 22nd International Symposium On Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS). 2003, Florence, Italy: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Houston I, Little MC, Robinson I, Shrivastava SK, Wheater SM. The CORBA activity service framework for supporting extended transactions. Software - Practice and Experience 2003, 33(4), 351-373.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. An Examination of the Transition of the Arjuna Distributed Transaction Processing Software from Research to Products. In: 2nd USENIX Workshop on Industrial Experiences with Systems Software (WIESS '02). 2002, Boston, MA, USA: USENIX Association.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK, Speirs NA. Using bloom filters to speed-up name lookup in distributed systems. Computer Journal 2002, 45(6), 645-652.
• Ezhilchelvan PD, Shrivastava SK, Little MC. A Model and Architecture for Conducting Hierarchically Structured Auctions. In: 4th IEEE International Symposium on Object Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing (ISORC 2001). 2001, Magdeburg, Germany: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Ezhilchelvan PD, Shrivastava SK, Little MC. A Model and Architecture for Conducting Hierarchically Structured Auctions. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2001. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 723.
• Webber J, Corrales V, Little MC, Parastatidis S. Making Web Services Work. Application Development Advisor 2001, 5(9), 68-71.
• Houston I, Little MC, Robinson I et al. The CORBA Activity Service Framework for Supporting Extended Transactions. In: 2001 IFIP/ACM International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms (Middleware 2001). 2001, Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK, Wheater SM. Theory and Practice of Building Reliable Distributed Applications. In: 3rd IEEE International Symposium on Distributed Objects and Applications (DOA '01). 2001, Rome, Italy: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Snow CR, Little MC, Wheater SM, Ingham DB. The University Student Registration System: a Case Study in Building a High-Availability Distributed Application Using General Purpose Components. In: Advances in Distributed Systems: Advanced Distributed Computing - from Algorithms to Systems. Springer-Verlag, 2000, pp.453-471.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. A Method for Combining Replication with Cacheing. In: 1999 IEEE Workshop on Reliable Middleware (WREMI '99), part of the 18th IEEE Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS '99). 1999, Lausanne, Switzerland: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Morgan G, Shrivastava SK, Ezhilchelvan PD, Little MC. Design and Implementation of a CORBA Fault-Tolerant Object Group Service. In: Distributed applications and interoperable systems II : IFIP TC6 WG6.1 second International Working Conference on Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems (DAIS'99). 1999, Helsinki, Finland: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Implementing High Availability CORBA Applications with Java. In: 1st IEEE Workshop on Internet Applications (WIAPP '99). 1999, San Jose, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Integrating Group Communication with Transactions for Implementing Persistent Replicated Objects. In: Krakowiak, S. and Shrivastava, S.K, ed. Advances in Distributed Systems. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1999, pp.238-253.
• Little MC. Object decomposition in transactional applications. In: 8th High Performance Transaction Processing Workshop (HPTS99). 1999, Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, California, USA.
• Arief LB, Little MC, Shrivastava SK, Speirs NA, Wheater SM. Specifying distributed system services. BT Technology Journal 1999, 17(2), 126-136.
• Little MC, Wheater SM, Ingham DB, Snow CR, Whitfield H, Shrivastava SK. The University Student Registration System: A Case Study in Building a High-Availability Distributed Application Using General Purpose Components. In: Krakowiak, S. and Shrivastava, S.K, ed. Advances in Distributed Systems. Springer-Verlag, 1999, pp.453-471.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Understanding the Role of Atomic Transactions and Group Communications in Implementing Persistent Replicated Objects. In: 8th International Workshop on Persistent Object Systems: Design, Implementation and Use (POS8), Advances in Persistent Object Systems. 1999, Tiburon, California, USA: Morgan Kaufmann.
• Little MC, Wheater SM. Building Configurable Applications in Java. In: 4th IEEE International Conference on Configurable Distributed Systems (ICCDS '98). 1998, Annapolis, Maryland, USA: IEEE Computer Society.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Building Configurable Applications in Java. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1998. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 653.
• Caughey SJ, Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Checked Transactions in an Asynchronous Message Passing Environment. In: 1st IEEE International Symposium on Object-Oriented Real-time Distributed Computing (ISORC '98). 1998, Kyoto, Japan: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Caughey SJ, Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Checked Transactions in an Asynchronous Message Passing Environment. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1998. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 655.
• Little MC, Speirs NA. Comparative Evaluation of Object Location Mechanisms. British Telecom, 1998.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Distributed Transactions in Java. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1998. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 651.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Integrating the Object Transaction Service with the Web. In: 2nd IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Workshop (EDOC '98). 1998, La Jolla, California, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Integrating the Object Transaction Service with the Web. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1998. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 656.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Java Transactions for the Internet. IEE Distributed Systems Engineering 1998, 5(4), 156-167.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Java Transactions for the Internet. In: 4th USENIX Conference on Object-Oriented Technologies and Systems (COOTS IV). 1998, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA: USENIX Association.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Java Transactions for the Internet. Department of Computing Science, The University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1998. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 652.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Providing end-to-end transactional Web applications using the Object Transaction Service. OMG Success Story 1998.
• Little MC. Constructing reliable Web applications using atomic actions. Computer Networks 1997, 29(8-13), 1281-1290.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK, Caughey SJ, Ingham DB. Constructing Reliable Web Applications Using Atomic Actions. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1997. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 601.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Distributed Transactions in Java. In: 7th High Performance Transaction Systems Workshop (HPTS 1997). 1997, Pacific Grove, California, USA.
• Ingham DB, Caughey SJ, Little MC. Fixing the "Broken-link" Problem: The W3Objects Approach. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1997. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 591.
• Caughey SJ, Ingham DB, Little MC. Flexible Open Caching for the Web. In: 6th International World Wide Web Conference. 1997, Santa Clara, California, USA: Elsevier Science.
• Ingham DB, Caughey SJ, Little MC. Supporting Highly Manageable Web Services. In: 6th International World Wide Web Conference. 1997, Santa Clara, California, USA: Elsevier Science Publishers.
• Ingham DB, Caughey SJ, Little MC. Supporting Highly Manageable Web Services. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1997. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 592.
• Wheater SM, Little MC. The Design and Implementation of a Framework for Configurable Software. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1997. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 578.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Using Application Specific Knowledge for Configuring Object Replicas. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1997. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 579.
• Ingham DB, Little MC, Caughey SJ, Shrivastava SK. W3Objects: Bringing Object-Oriented Technology to the Web. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1997. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 590.
• Ingham DB, Little MC, Caughey SJ, Shrivastava SK. W3Objects: Distributed Objects and the Web. Dr. Dobb's Sourcebook: Distributed Objects 1997, 22(13), 19-25.
• Ingham DB, Caughey SJ, Little MC. Fixing the "Broken-Link" problem: The W3Objects approach. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 1996, 28(7-11), 1255-1268.
• Wheater SM, Little MC. The Design and Implementation of a Framework for Configurable Software. In: 3rd IEEE International Conference on Configurable Distributed Systems (ICCDS '96). 1996, Maryland, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Using Application Specific Knowledge for Configuring Object Replicas. In: 3rd IEEE International Conference on Configurable Distributed Systems (ICCDS '96). 1996, Maryland, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Wheater SM, Little MC. The Design and Implementation of a Framework for Extensible Software. BROADCAST ESPRIT Basic Research Project 6360, 1995. 6360.
• Parrington GD, Shrivastava SK, Wheater SM, Little MC. The Design and Implementation of Arjuna. Computing Systems 1995, 8(3), 255-308.
• Parrington GD, Shrivastava SK, Wheater SM, Little MC. The Design and Implementation of Arjuna. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1995. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 509.
• Ingham DB, Little MC, Caughey SJ, Shrivastava SK. W3Objects: Bringing Object-Oriented Technology to the Web. In: 4th International World Wide Web Conference. 1995, Boston, Massachusetts, USA: O'Reilly & Associates.
• Little MC, McCue DL. Construction and Use of a Simulation Package in C++. C User's Journal 1994, 12(3).
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Object Replication in Arjuna. BROADCAST Project, 1994. 50.
• Parrington GD, Shrivastava SK, Wheater SM, Little MC. The Design and Implementation of Arjuna. BROADCAST Project, 1994. 65.
• Little MC, McCue DL. The Replica Management System: A Scheme for Flexible and Dynamic Replication. In: 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Configurable Distributed Systems (IWCDS-2). 1994, Pittsburgh, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Little MC, McCue DL. The Replica Management System: A Scheme for Flexible and Dynamic Replication. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1994. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 472.
• Little MC, McCue DL. Construction and Use of a Simulation Package in C++. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1993. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 437.
• Little MC, McCue DL, Shrivastava SK. Maintaining Information about Persistent Replicated Objects in a Distributed System. In: 13th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS '93). 1993, Pittsburgh, PA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Little MC, McCue DL, Shrivastava SK. Maintaining Information about Persistent Replicated Objects in a Distributed System. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1993. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 422.
• Little MC, McCue DL, Shrivastava SK. Maintaining Information about Persistent Replicated Objects in a Distributed System. BROADCAST Project, 1993.
• McCue DL, Little MC. Computing Replica Placement in a Distributed System. In: 2nd IEEE Workshop on the Management of Replicated Data. 1992, Monterey, California, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• McCue DL, Little MC. Computing Replica Placement in Distributed Systems. Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1992. Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series 392.
• Little MC. Object Replication in a Distributed System. Newcastle upon Tyne: Computing Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1992. Computing Laboratory Technical Report Series 376.
• Little MC. Object Replication in a Distributed System [PhD Thesis]. Newcastle upon Tyne: Computing Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1991.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Replicated K-Resilient Objects in Arjuna. Newcastle upon Tyne: Computing Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1991. Computing Laboratory Technical Report Series 319.
• Little MC, Shrivastava SK. Replicated K-Resilient Objects in Arjuna. In: 1st IEEE Workshop on the Management of Replicated Data. 1990, Houston, Texas, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Shrivastava SK, Ezhilchelvan PD, Little MC. Understanding Component Failures and Replications in Distributed Systems. ISA, 1990. UNT/TR1.
• Shrivastava S, Little M. Designing Atomic Business Functions. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2015. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 1457.
• Shrivastava S, Little M. Designing Atomic Business Functions with Distributed Control. In: IEEE 17th Conference on Business Informatics (CBI). 2015, Lisbon, Portugal: IEEE.
• Watson P, Little M. Multi-level security for deploying distributed applications on clouds, devices and things. In: IEEE 6th International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom), 2014. 2015, Singapore: IEEE Computer Society.
• Watson P, Little M. Multilevel Security for Deploying Distributed Applications on Clouds, Devices and Things. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 1430.