On the use of connector libraries in distributed software architectures

  • Authors:

  • Bharath Kumar M;Y. N. Srikant;Lakshminarayanan R

  • Affiliations:

  • Indian Institute of Science, C.V. Raman Avenue, Yeshwanthpur, Bangalore --- 560012, India;Indian Institute of Science, C.V. Raman Avenue, Yeshwanthpur, Bangalore --- 560012, India;IRISA/INRIA, Rennes, France and Indian Institute of Science, C.V. Raman Avenue, Yeshwanthpur, Bangalore --- 560012, India

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

Recent developments in the field of software architecture have emphasized the concept of first class connectors, which capture the interaction between components. The concept of first class connectors aids the development of distributed software architectures since it can be used to separate concerns of remote interaction between components. A library of prewritten connectors would help prototype, develop, maintain and reconfigure distributed software architectures. Completely automating the usage of connector libraries in distributed software architectures is not trivial since code fragments implementing the connectors have to be partitioned, deployed and instantiated in different machines. In this paper we discuss these issues in connector refinement and instantiation imposed by distributed software architectures and present the construction of a tool that works alongside a connector library to automatically partition, deploy and instantiate architectural entities in various machines. Scalability of the tool to allow for new connector types has been an important issue in its design and function. We also demonstrate the high flexibility and reconfigurability achieved on an interesting application by using a connector library along with our tool.