The design of a configurable and reconfigurable middleware platform

  • Authors:

  • Geoff Coulson;Gordon S. Blair;Michael Clarke;Nikos Parlavantzas

  • Affiliations:

  • Distributed Multimedia Research Group, Computing Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YR, UK;Department of Computer Science, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway;Distributed Multimedia Research Group, Computing Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YR, UK;Distributed Multimedia Research Group, Computing Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YR, UK

  • Venue:
  • Distributed Computing
  • Year:
  • 2002

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

It is now well established that middleware platforms must accommodate an increasingly diverse range of requirements arising from the needs of both applications and underlying systems. Moreover, it is clear that to achieve this accommodation, platforms must be capable of both deployment-time configurability and run-time reconfigurability. This paper describes a middleware platform that addresses these requirements. The platform is built using a well-founded lightweight component model, uses reflective techniques to facilitate (re)configuration, and employs the notion of component frameworks to manage and constrain the scope of reconfiguration operations. Importantly, the platform also aims to achieve high performance and a level of standards conformance (e.g., with CORBA and COM). We demonstrate that, despite its high degree of configurability, the platform performs on a par with standard commercial CORBA ORBs.