Towards Automatic Middleware Generation

Abstract

Building middleware for distributed applications is a complex task, mixing antagonistic concerns: heterogeneity, performance, reliability, quality of services. Optimization and fine-tuning of middleware for a particular application is even a harder task, usually done manually or through complex design patterns. The advent of "schizophrenic" middleware which separates concerns between distribution model, communication protocols, and their implementation by refining the definition and role of "personalities" brought some elements to solve this problem by enabling full tailoring of the middleware by the developer. In this paper we extend this approach to full automation by generating middleware from an architectural model of the system expressed in a modeling language. This enables precise tuning and configuration of the middleware by generating exactly the required code, prior to runtime. We finally show how this approach fits the requirements of high-integrity or real-time distributed systems.