Specializing object-oriented RPC for functionality and performance

Abstract

Remote procedure call (RPC) integrates distributed processing with conventional programming languages. However traditional RPC lacks support for forms of communication such as datagrams, multicast, and streams that fall outside the strict request-response model. Emerging applications such as Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) and Internet video require scalable, reliable, and efficient communication. Applications are often forced to meet these requirements by resorting to the error-prone ad-hoc message-based programming that characterized applications prior to the introduction of RPC. In this paper we describe an object-oriented RPC system that supports specialization for functionality and performance, allowing applications to modify and tune the RPC system to meet individual requirements. Our experiences with functional extensions to support reliable multicast and specializations to support streaming of performance-critical RPCs indicate that a wide range of communication semantics can be supported without resorting to ad-hoc messaging protocols.