Object-oriented design of real-time telecom systems

Many engineers are still reluctant to adopt advanced object oriented technologies (such as high modularity, dynamic binding, automatic garbage collection, etc.) for embedded systems with real time constraints, because of their supposed inefficiency. We set ourselves into the context of building telecommunication systems with a standard object oriented analysis and design approach. We describe how we use relevant design patterns, followed with an implementation in a pure object oriented language (Eiffel) to conciliate the needed efficiency with the benefits of the object oriented approach-flexibility, dynamic configurability, maintainability, portability etc. We discuss a case study based on the implementation of SMDS (Switched Multi-megabits Data Service) servers featuring high throughput and low delay transmissions and respecting the real time constraints of SMDS.