Performance comparison of architectures for client-server interactions in CORBA

Middleware promotes interoperability as well as provides transparent location of servers in heterogeneous client-server environments. Although a number of benefits are provided by middleware, careful consideration of system architecture is required to achieve high performance. Based on implementation and measurements made on a network of workstations running a commercial CORBA compliant ORB called ORBeline the paper is concerned with the impact of client-agent-server interaction architecture on performance. The paper reports on the relative performances of three interaction architectures under different workload conditions. In particular the impact of inter-node delays, message size, and request service times on the latency and scalability attributes of these architectures is analyzed. A method called agent cloning and how it can be used for improving system performance are described.