Communication style driven connector configurations

Abstract

Connectors are used in component-based systems as first-class entities to abstract component interactions. In this paper, we propose a way to compose connectors by using fine-grained elements, each of them representing a single, well-defined function. We identify an experimentally proven set of connector elements, which, composed together, model four basic component interconnection types (procedure call, messaging, streaming, blackboard), and allow for connector variants to reflect distribution, security, fault-tolerance, etc. We also discuss how to generate such a connector semi-automatically. The presented results are based on a proof-of-the-concept implementation. © Springer-Verlag 2004.