OBIWAN: Design and Implementation of a Middleware Platform

Abstract

Programming distributed applications supporting data sharing is very hard. In most middleware platforms, programmers must deal with system-level issues for which they do not have the adequate knowledge, e.g., object replication, abusive resource consumption by mobile agents, and distributed garbage collection. As a result, programmers are diverted from their main task: the application logic. In addition, given that such system-level issues are extremely error-prone, programmers spend innumerous hours debugging. We designed, implemented, and evaluated a middleware platform called OBIWAN that releases the programmer from the above mentioned system-level issues. OBIWAN has the following distinctive characteristics: 1) allows the programmer to develop applications using either remote object invocation, object replication, or mobile agents, according to the specific needs of applications, 2) supports automatic object replication (e.g., incremental on-demand replication, transparent object faulting and serving, etc.), 3) supports distributed garbage collection of useless replicas, and 4) supports the specification and enforcement of history-based security policies well adapted to mobile agents needs (e.g., preventing abusive resource consumption).