Engineering CORBA-based systems for high performance

Abstract

Inter-operability in heterogeneous distributed systems is often provided with the help of CORBA compliant middleware. Many distributed object computing systems, however, are characterized by limited heterogeneity. Such systems often contain a subset of components that are written in the same programming language and run on top of the same p-Worm. We present engineering techniques that exploit such limited heterogeneity in systems for achieving high system performance. With these techniques components implemented using diverse programming languages and/or platform use a CORBA compliant middleware, whereas the similar components can use a "flyover" that employs a separate path between the client and its server and avoids a number of CORBA overheads. Insights into system behavior and performance gained from results of experiments with synthetic workload running on a network of PCs are presented.