TMN4013

Learning Unit 3
Distributed Objects
• Introduction
• Communication between distributed
objects
• Events and notifications

2
 (Recap) Middleware

• Layers of Middleware
• Provide a programming model
• Provide transparency
• Location
• Communication protocols
• Computer hardware
• Operating systems
• Programming languages

3
(Recap) Middleware layers

Applications

RMI, RPC and events

Middleware
Request reply protocol layers

External data representation

Operating System

4
 (Recap) Distributed programming model
• Remote procedure call (RPC)
• Birrel and Nelson (1984)
• call procedure in separate process
• Remote method invocation (RMI)
• extension of local method invocation in OO model
• invoke the methods of an object of another process
• Event-based model
• Register interested events of other objects
• Receive notification of the events at other objects

5
 (Recap) Interfaces
• Interface
• Specifies accessible procedures and variables
• Inner alteration won’t affect the user of the interface
• Interface in distributed system
• Can’t access variables directly
• Input argument and output argument
• Pointers can’t be passed as arguments or returned results

6
 (Recap) Interface cases

• RPC’s Service interface

• specification of the procedures of the server
• input and output arguments of each procedure
• RMI’s Remote interface
• Specification of the methods of an object that are available for
objects in other processes
• may pass objects or remote object references as arguments or
returned result
• Interface definition languages
• program language, e.g. Java RMI
• Interface definition language (IDL), e.g. CORBA IDL, DCE IDL and
DCOM IDL

7
Communication between
distributed objects
 Discuss RMI under following headings
• The object model
• Distributed objects
• The distributed object model
• Design issues
• semantics of remote invocations
• Implementation
• RMI above the request-reply protocol
• Distributed garbage collections

9
 The object model

• Object references
• Objects can be accessed via object references
• First-class values
• Interfaces
• A definition of the signatures of a set of methods
• No constructers
• A class can implement several interfaces, e.g. Java
• Actions
• Initiated by an object invoking a method in another object
• Two affects
• Change the state of the receiver
• Further invocations on methods in other objects

10
 The object model

• Exceptions mechanism
• A clean way to deal with error conditions
• List exceptions at the method head
• throw user know exceptions
• Catch exceptions
• Garbage collection
• Freeing the space occupied by cancelled objects
• C++: collected by programmers
• Java: collected by JVM

11
 Distributed objects
• Natural extension
• physical distribution of objects into different processes or
computers in a distributed system
• Benefits of distributed objects
• Enforce encapsulation
• can’t access variables directly
• Support heterogeneous systems
• Assume other architectural models then client/server
• Replicated objects
• Migrated objects

12
Remote and local method invocations

local C
remote
E
invocation invocation local
remote
invocation
invocation F
B
A local

invocation D

13
 The distributed objects model

• Remote object reference

• A unique identifier in a distributed system
• May be passed as arguments and results of remote method
invocation
• Remote interface
• remote object class implements the methods of its remote interface
• Actions in a distributed systems
• may incur a chain of invocations on different computers
• Garbage collection
• Usually based on reference counting
• Exception
• notify the client and the client handle exceptions
14
A remote object and its remote interface

remoteobject

Data
remote
interface
m1 m4
implementation
{ m2
m3 of methods
m5
m6

15
 Design Issues – Invocation semantics

• Choices for different delivery guarantees

• retry request message
• duplicate filtering
• retransmission of results
• Three different semantics

Fault tolerance measures Invocation

semantics

Retransmit request Duplicate Re-execute procedure

message filtering or retransmit reply
No Not applicable Not applicable Maybe
Yes No Re-execute procedure At-least-once

Yes Yes Retransmit reply At-most-once 16

 Different invocation semantics

• Maybe
• For invoker: executed once, or not at all ???
• Suffer from: (1) message lost; (2) server crash
• Useful for app. in which occasional failed invocation are acceptable
• At least once
• For invoker: execute at least once, or an exception
• Suffer from: (1) server crash; (2) arbitrary failures for non-
idempotent method
• At most once
• For invoker: receives result, or an exception
• Prevent: omission failures by retrying, arbitrary failures

17
 Design Issues - Transparency

• What can be made transparent

• marshaling
• message passing
• object locating and contacting
• What can’t be made transparent
• vulnerable to failure
• latency
• Current consensus(Jim Waldo research paper)
• Syntax of remote invocation should be same as of local invocation
• Difference in remote and local objects should be expressed in their
interfaces

18
 Implementation of RMI

• The inner scene of RMI

• Communication module
• Request/reply between client and server
• As discussed in chapter 4, figure 4.13
• Communication module at Server side Select dispatcher at server
• Remote reference module
• Translate between local and remote object reference
• Create remote object reference
• Remote object table
• entries for remote objects held by the process
• entries for local proxies
• Actions of RRM
• When a remote object is to be passed as argument or result for the first time
the remote reference module is asked to create a remote object reference,
which it adds to its table
• When a remote object reference arrives in a request or reply message, the
remote reference module is asked for the corresponding local object
reference, which may either refer to proxy or remote object

19
 Request-reply message structure (fig 4.13)

messageType int (0=Request, 1= Reply)

requestId int
objectReference RemoteObjectRef
methodId int or Method
arguments array of bytes

20
The role of proxy and skeleton in remote method invocation

client server
remote
skeleton
object A proxy for B object B
Request & dispatcher
for B’s class

Reply

Remote Communication Communication Remote reference

reference module module
module module

21
 Implementation of RMI – RMI software

• Proxy
• forward invocation to remote object
• one remote object one proxy
• implement the method in the remote interface
• It marshals a reference to the target object , its own methodId and its arguments
into request message and send it to the target, awaits the reply and message,
unmarshals it and returns the results to invoker
• Skeleton
• implement the method in the remote interface
• unmarshal the arguments in the request
• invoke the corresponding method in the remote object
• wait for the invocation complete
• marshal the result in the reply message
• Dispatcher
• Receive the request from communication module and select
appropriate method in the skeleton
• one dispatcher and skeleton for one remote object

22
 Implementation of RMI - execution

• The classes for proxies, dispatchers and skeletons

• generated automatically by an interface compiler, e.g. rmic
• Server program
• create and initialize at least one of the remote objects
• register
• Client program
• look up the remote object references
• Invoke
• Factory methods
• Remote object interface cannot have constructors
• Remote objects are either created in initialization section or in remote
methods designed for that purpose, called factory methods

23
 Implementation of RMI - Object state

• The binder
• A service that maintains mapping information of textual names to
remote object references
• Activation of remote objects
• to avoid resource waste, the servers can be started whenever they
are needed- FTP service
• Activators: process that start server processes to host remote
objects.
• a remote object could be active or passive
• Passive object: consist of two parts
• Implementation of its methods
• Its state in marshaled form
• Activation: Making a new object from corresponding passive object
by creating a new instance of its class and initializing its variables
from the stored state
• Java RMI uses one activator on each server computer , which is
responsible for activating objects on that computer.
24
 Implementation of RMI - Object state (cont..)

• Persistent object stores

• Persistent object
• an object that is guaranteed to live between activations of processes
• Persistent Object Store
• Manage and store the state of persistent objects
• different passivate strategies
• at the end of a transaction
• when the program exit
• E.g., Persistent Java, PerDiS

25
 Distributed garbage collection

• The aim of a distributed garbage collector

• Retain the object (local&remote) when it is still be referenced
• Collect the object when none holds reference to it

• Java distributed garbage collection algorithm

• based on reference counting
• Whenever a remote object enters a process, a proxy is created and will stay
there for as long as needed. The process where the actual object lives (server)
should be informed, then later when there is no longer a proxy at the client,
server should be informed

• Distributed Garbage collection works in corporation with local

garbage collectors
• server maintain processes set that hold remote object references to
it for each of its remote objects
• client notify server to modify the process set
• when the process set becomes empty, server local garbage
collector reclaims the space

26
Distributed garbage collection (cont..)

• Leases in Jini
• lease: the granting of the use of a resource for a period of time
• avoid to discover whether the resource users are still interested or their
programs have not exited

27
Event and Notification
 Event-notification model

• Idea
• one object react to a change occurring in another object
• Event examples
• modification of a document
• A new doc added in an electronically tagged book
• Publish/subscribe paradigm
• event generator publish the type of events
• event receiver subscribe to the types of events that are interest to
them
• When event occur, notify the receiver
• Distributed event-based system – two characteristics
• Heterogeneous
• asynchronous
29
 Example - dealing room system

• Requirements
– allow dealers to see the latest market price information
• System components
– Information provider
• receive new trading information
• publish stocks prices event
• stock price update notification
– Dealer process
• subscribe stocks prices event
• System architecture

30
 Dealing room system

Dealer’s computer External Dealer’s computer

source

Dealer Notification Notification Dealer

Notification Information
provider Notification

Notification
Notification
Notification
Dealer’s computer Dealer’s computer
Notification

Information
provider
Notification
Notification
Dealer
Dealer
External
source 31
 Architecture for distributed event notification

• Event service: maintain a database of published events and of subscribers’

interests
• decouple the publishers from the subscribers

Event service
object of interest subscriber

1. notification

object of interest observer subscriber

2. notification notification

object of interest observer subscriber

3. notification

32
 The roles of the participating objects

• The object of interest

• its changes of state might be of interest to other objects
• Event
• the completion of a method execution
• Notification
• an object that contains information about an event
• Subscriber
• an object that has subscribed to some type of events in another object
• Observer objects
• the main purpose is to decouple an object of interest from its
subscribers
• Publisher
• an object that declares that it will generate notifications of particular
types of event

33
 Notification delivery

• Delivery semantics
• Unreliable
• Reliable
• real-time
• Roles for observers
• Forwarding
• send notifications to subscribers on behalf of one or more
objects of interests
• Filtering of notifications
• Patterns of events
• Notification mailboxes
• notification be delayed until subscriber being ready to receive

34
 Jini distributed event specification

• EventGenerator interface
• Provide register method
• Event generator implement it
• Subscriber invoke it to subscribe to the interested events
• RemoteEventListener interface
• Provide notify method
• subscriber implement it
• receive notifications when the notify method is invoked
• RemoteEvent
• a notification that is passed as argument to the notify method
• Third-party agents
• interpose between an object of interest and a subscriber
• equivalent of observer

35
Unsupervised Lab
• Please refer to eLeap for lab material on RMI
• This is unsupervised lab (you are on your 3rd / 4th year anyway),
please do it on your own time
Any question?