A Theory of Distributed Objects: Asynchrony — Mobility — Groups — Components

Description

Distributed and communicating objects are becoming ubiquitous. In global, Grid and Peer-to-Peer computing environments, extensive use is made of objects interacting through method calls. So far, no general formalism has been proposed for the foundation of such systems. Caromel and Henrio are the first to define a calculus for distributed objects interacting using asynchronous method calls with generalized futures, i.e., wait-by-necessity -- a must in large-scale systems, providing both high structuring and low coupling, and thus scalability. The authors provide very generic results on expressiveness and determinism, and the potential of their approach is further demonstrated by its capacity to cope with advanced issues such as mobility, groups, and components. Researchers and graduate students will find here an extensive review of concurrent languages and calculi, with comprehensive figures and summaries. Developers of distributed systems can adopt the many implementation strategies that are presented and analyzed in detail. Preface by Luca Cardelli Analysis....Pages 3-19 Formalisms and Distributed Calculi....Pages 21-58 An Imperative Sequential Calculus....Pages 63-68 Asynchronous Sequential Processes....Pages 69-74 A Few Examples....Pages 75-82 Parallel Semantics....Pages 87-99 Basic ASP Properties....Pages 101-106 Confluence Property....Pages 107-120 Determinacy....Pages 121-131 More Confluent Features....Pages 137-142 Non-Confluent Features....Pages 143-149 Migration....Pages 151-155 Groups....Pages 157-167 Components....Pages 169-179 Channels and Reconfigurations....Pages 181-186 A Java API for ASP: ProActive....Pages 189-212 Future Update....Pages 213-224 Loosing Rendezvous....Pages 225-236 Controlling Pipelining....Pages 237-239 Garbage Collection....Pages 241-242 ASP Versus Other Concurrent Calculi....Pages 245-251 Conclusion....Pages 253-259 Epilogue....Pages 261-266