Towards a service-based middleware layer for runtime environments

ABSTRACT

Natively compiled, binary-code application programs are typically thought of as executing on the "raw" operating system. However, they do in fact utilize a bare-bones middleware layer---the dynamic linker. This paper presents a service-based view of an expanded run-time environment in which the current dynamic linker is only a core service, and other middleware-type services are available to the application and its components (shared libraries). This paper then describes a prototype implementation of such an environment, called SBRT, or Service-Based Run-Time. SBRT also contains a unified event-based interface that allows for customized middleware services by means of an extension mechanism.

REFERENCES

• 1: Kai Böllert, On Weaving Aspects, Proceedings of the Workshop on Object-Oriented Technology, p.301-302, June 14-18, 1999
• 2: Daniel Bovet , Marco Cesati, Understanding The Linux Kernel, Oreilly & Associates Inc, 2005
• 3: Bryan Buck , Jeffrey K. Hollingsworth, An API for Runtime Code Patching, International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, v.14 n.4, p.317-329, November 2000 [doi>10.1177/109434200001400404]
• 4: Charles Consel, Program adaptation based on program transformation, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, v.32 n.1, p.69-72, Jan. 1997 [doi>10.1145/251595.254090]
• 5: U. Drepper. ELF Handling For Thread-Local Storage. http://people.redhat.com/drepper/tls.pdf, 2005.
• 6: Ira R. Forman , Nate Forman, Java Reflection in Action (In Action series), Manning Publications Co., Greenwich, CT, 2004
• 7: G. Kiczales, J. Lamping, A. Menhdhekar, C. Maeda, C. Lopes, J.-M. Loingtier, and J. Irwin. Aspect-Oriented Programming. In Proceedings of European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, volume 1241, pages 220--242. Springer-Verlag, 1997.
• 8: J. R. Levine. Linkers & Loaders. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2000.
• 9: Philip K. McKinley , Seyed Masoud Sadjadi , Eric P. Kasten , Betty H. C. Cheng, Composing Adaptive Software, Computer, v.37 n.7, p.56-64, July 2004 [doi>10.1109/MC.2004.48]
• 10: Joy Mukherjee , Srinidhi Varadarajan, Develop once deploy anywhere achieving adaptivity with a runtime linker/loader framework, Proceedings of the 4th workshop on Reflective and adaptive middleware systems, November 28-December 02, 2005, Grenoble, France [doi>10.1145/1101516.1101517]
• 11: A. Mukhija and M. Glinz. Runtime Adaptation of Applications through Dynamic Recomposition of Components. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems (ARCS 2005), pages 124--138, 2005.
• 12: Peyman Oreizy , Nenad Medvidovic , Richard N. Taylor, Architecture-based runtime software evolution, Proceedings of the 20th international conference on Software engineering, p.177-186, April 19-25, 1998, Kyoto, Japan
• 13: S. P. Reiss and M. Renieris. Languages for Dynamic Instrumentation. In Proc. 2003 ICSE Workshop on Dynamic Analysis, pages 41--45, 2003.
• 14: Jeffrey Richter , Jeffrey Richter, Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming, Microsoft Press, Redmond, WA, 2002
• 15: Sun Microsystems Inc. Linker and Libraries Guide. http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-0641, 2007.
• 16: S. Tambe, N. Vedagiri, N. Abbas, and J. Cook. DDL: Customizing the Dynamic Linking Process for Program Analysis and Evolution. In Proc. International Conference on Software Maintenance: Poster Session, page 4pp., 2005.
• 17: D. Vollmann. Metaclasses and Reflection in C++. http://www.vollmann.com/pubs/meta/meta/meta.html, 2000.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.11 Software Architectures

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.4 Processors
          Subjects: Run-time environments

General Terms:
Design, Management

Keywords:
dynamic linker, middleware, runtime environments, service-based architecture