Trading and negotiating stream bindings

Abstract

Distributed multimedia information systems require a range of different interaction styles ranging from simple remote operation interaction to complex patterns of interaction involving both discrete and continuous data. The standardized reference model for Open Distributed Processing (ODP) defines a binding model that encapsulates different interaction styles within explicit binding objects. In this paper we discuss mechanisms for selecting and negotiating appropriate explicit stream bindings as required by the application. We describe the notion of explicit bindings and introduce the idea of using a trading-like facility for selecting potential binding types. We show how an earlier proposed type model for stream interfaces can be used as a basis for binding type selection, and extended to support automatic negotiation of binding properties.