CompTalks - From a meta-model towards a framework for application-level interaction protocols

Abstract

This work presents CompTalks - a novel concept and meta-model for specifying application-level communication protocols. The goal is to enable custom fine-grained and elaborate message exchange between distributed yet tightly-coupled parties. Hence, the concept of a conversation protocol is introduced. Its reference implementation - the CompTalks Framework - is a Java-based middleware toolkit that supports development, testing, analysis, validation and running highly interactive services. An important feature is the ability to verify the developed protocols at compile time by using a Petri Net-based analyzer. The framework was successfully applied to develop a protocol for GSEngine which serves as the runtime system of the ViroLab virtual laboratory, enabling development and execution of complex collaborative applications. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.