Efficient replicated method invocation in Java

Abstract

We describe a new approach to object replication in Java, aimed at improving the performance of parallel programs. Our programming model allows the programmer to define groups of objects that can be replicated and updated as a whole, using totally-ordered broadcast to send update methods to all machines containing a copy. The model has been implemented in the Manta high-performance Java system. Performance measurements on a Myrinet cluster show that the replication mechanism is efficient (e.g., updating 16 replicas of a simple object takes 68 microseconds, only slightly longer than the Manta RMI latency). Example applications that use object replication perform as fast as manually optimized versions based on RMI.