A framework to support large-scale active applications

Abstract

Many applications are emerging which share the characteristic of being active, i.e. driven by asynchronous run-time events. The application areas include multimedia, cooperative working (such as conferencing), intelligent agent architectures, active database and support for user mobility. Prototype active applications are often developed from scratch as monolithic entities and are thus inflexible. Platforms which offer generalized support only usually deal with one application class in isolation.The thesis of this work is that active applications have generic requirements of a supporting platform. Rather than building each application as a monolithic entity, they can be composed of inter-connected sub-components called active objects. These objects can be used interchangeably in a plug-and-play architecture. This encourages on-the-fly application development and assists fast prototyping.This paper is supported by our implementation of a prototype distributed active application support platform. Our software is used to provide examples throughout. Section 1 describes the application requirements which a platform must be able to support. Section 2 describes the model for composing applications. Section 3 describes how a distributed programming platform has been enhanced for run-time object support and to allow new active object classes to be constructed easily. Finally, section 4 concludes.