TY - GEN
T1 - Bridging the interoperability gap
T2 - 12th ACM/IFIP/USENIX International Middleware Conference, Middleware 2011
AU - Bromberg, Yérom David
AU - Grace, Paul
AU - Réveillère, Laurent
AU - Blair, Gordon S.
PY - 2011/12/23
Y1 - 2011/12/23
N2 - Interoperability remains a significant challenge in today's distributed systems; it is necessary to quickly compose and connect (often at runtime) previously developed and deployed systems in order to build more complex systems of systems. However, such systems are characterized by heterogeneity at both the application and middleware-level, where application differences are seen in terms of incompatible interface signatures and data content, and at the middleware level in terms of heterogeneous communication protocols. Consider a Flickr client implemented upon the XML-RPC protocol being composed with Picasa's Service; here, the Flickr and Picasa APIs differ significantly, and the underlying communication protocols are different. A number of ad-hoc solutions exist to resolve differences at either distinct level, e.g., data translation technologies, service choreography tools, or protocol bridges; however, we argue that middleware solutions to interoperability should support developers in addressing these challenges using a unified framework. For this purpose we present the Starlink framework, which allows an interoperability solution to be specified using domain specific languages that are then used to generate the necessary executable software to enable runtime interoperability. We demonstrate the effectiveness of Starlink using an application case-study and show that it successfully resolves combined application and middleware heterogeneity.
AB - Interoperability remains a significant challenge in today's distributed systems; it is necessary to quickly compose and connect (often at runtime) previously developed and deployed systems in order to build more complex systems of systems. However, such systems are characterized by heterogeneity at both the application and middleware-level, where application differences are seen in terms of incompatible interface signatures and data content, and at the middleware level in terms of heterogeneous communication protocols. Consider a Flickr client implemented upon the XML-RPC protocol being composed with Picasa's Service; here, the Flickr and Picasa APIs differ significantly, and the underlying communication protocols are different. A number of ad-hoc solutions exist to resolve differences at either distinct level, e.g., data translation technologies, service choreography tools, or protocol bridges; however, we argue that middleware solutions to interoperability should support developers in addressing these challenges using a unified framework. For this purpose we present the Starlink framework, which allows an interoperability solution to be specified using domain specific languages that are then used to generate the necessary executable software to enable runtime interoperability. We demonstrate the effectiveness of Starlink using an application case-study and show that it successfully resolves combined application and middleware heterogeneity.
KW - Application
KW - Automata
KW - Domain Specific Languages
KW - Evolution
KW - Interoperability
KW - Middleware
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=83755228977&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-25821-3_20
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-25821-3_20
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-25821-3_20
M3 - Conference publication
AN - SCOPUS:83755228977
SN - 9783642258206
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 390
EP - 409
BT - Middleware 2011 - ACM/IFIP/USENIX 12th International Middleware Conference, Proceedings
PB - Springer
Y2 - 12 December 2011 through 16 December 2011
ER -