G2CL: A generic group communication layer for clustered applications

Abstract

Generic group communication frameworks offer several benefits to developers of clustered applications, including better software modularity and greater flexibility in selecting a particular group communication system. However, current generic frameworks only support a very limited set of group communication primitives, which has hampered their adoption by many "real-world" clustered applications that require higher-level group communication services, such as state transfer, distributed data structures and replicated method invocation. This paper describes the design, implementation and initial evaluation of G2CL, a Generic Group Communication Layer that offers a set of commonly used high-level group communication services implemented on top of an existing generic framework. Compared to current group communication solutions, G2CL offers two main contributions: (i) its services can be configured to run over any group communication system supported by the underlying generic framework; and (ii) it implements the same service API used by JGroups, a popular group communication toolkit, which may reduce its learning curve and make the task of migrating to G2CL particularly attractive for JGroups users. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.