A system for constructing configurable high-level protocols

Abstract

New distributed computing applications are driving the development of more specialized protocols, as well as demanding greater control over the communication substrate. Here, a network subsystem that supports modular, finegrained construction of high-level protocols such as atomic multicast and group RPC is described. The approach is based on extending the standard hierarchical model of the x-kernel with composite protocols in which micro-protocol objects are composed within a standard runtime framework. Each micro-protocol realizes a separate semantic property, leading to a highly modular and configurable implementation. In contrast with similar systems, this approach provides finer granularity and more flexible inter-object communication. The design and prototype implementation runing on Mach are described. Performance results are also given for a micro-protocol suite implementing variants of group RPC.

The Meta-Protocol framework

“…A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t is an operating system communication kernel designed to provide configurable communication services in which a communication protocol represents a unit of composition; [7] extends the x-kernel architecture. Horus and Coyote are extensions and applications of the x-kernel architecture to the area of group communications [6,13,20,21,26].…”

“…Second, previous work does not provide a language, as we do, to express the specification of a protocol configuration. Finally, previous proposed solutions are either associated with a single layer of the network stack [14,17] or they replace the entire network stack [6,7,16]. Our work, on the other hand, is applicable to any layer of the network stack.…”

Connecting Embedded Devices Using a Component Platform for Adaptable Protocol Stacks

“…Although multiple software design frameworks for protocol stack development have been described in the literature [49][50][51][52], we compare the DiPS+ approach to three software architectures, which are tailored to protocol stacks and/or concurrency control: SEDA [22], Click modular router [53], and Scout [54].…”

The SILO Architecture for Services Integration, controL, and Optimization for the Future Internet

“…The use of micro-protocol objects, each encapsulating a single function, to facilitate the development of protocol stacks was considered in [6], [21]. Both approaches are x-kernel specific, as they rely on the x-kernel [17] environment and its mechanisms for communication between micro-protocols.…”