Transparent componentisation : a hybrid approach to support the development of contemporary distributed systems

• Main Author: Lin, Shen
• Published: Lancaster University 2010
• Subjects: 004.36
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.577545

Distributed computing systems are increasingly pervading all aspects Of daily life. This rapid growth is characterised by the growing com- plexity of these systems, which unfolds in three dimensions. First, contemporary distributed systems must often cater for computation nodes with heterogeneous computing and networking capacities; sec- ond, they must deal with dynamic changes such as network churns and mobile nodes; and finally, they are often large scale and must be able to grow elastically to meet evolving expectations. This thesis investigates how the above complexity dimensions can be made easier to control by using novel software development ap- proaches and frameworks. In particular, the proposed work seeks to develop approaches that promote three key properties in contempo- Ray distributed systems: 1) configurability to construct customised Systems that target heterogeneous operating environments; 2) die- Manic adaptability to adapt to dynamic changes; and, 3) understand- Ability and simplicity to facilitate software reuse and to hide low-level programming details. To address these issues, this thesis proposes a hybrid software devel- opment approach that combines the advantages of component frame works with that of high-level protocol specification languages. This hybrid approach, termed Transparent Componentisation, automati- cally maps a high-level protocol specification onto an underlying corn- ponent framework. It thus allows developers to focus on the program- matic description of a distributed system's behaviour in simple and high-level terms. Meanwhile, it transparently retains the benefits of a component architecture such as component reuse, configurability, and runtime adaptability. As a proof of concept, this thesis presents the WHISPERS/GOSSIP KIT framework for gossip-based distributed sys- terns, a representative subclass of contemporary distributed systems. WHISPERS/GOSSIPKIT is evaluated to demonstrate that it success- fully retains the simplicity and understandability of a high-level pro- tocol specification language while encouraging component reuse and supporting transparent (re)configuration thanks to its component un- derpinnings.