Invocation chaining: manipulating lightweight objects across heavyweight boundaries

Invocation batching combines multiple object invocations into a single message; result chaining makes results from one batched invocation available to the other invocations batched with it. Invocation chaining, or the combination of invocation batching with result chaining, is the key to allowing lightweight objects to be manipulated efficiently across heavyweight boundaries, whether between machines, between address spaces, or between user and kernel. By reducing the number of boundary crossings, invocation chaining reduces the total cost of invocation, making it more effective than previous solutions such as asynchronous messaging. This paper describes an initial implementation of invocation chaining.<>