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Fine-grained mobility in the Emerald system

Authors:

Eric Jul,

Henry Levy,

Norman Hutchinson,

Andrew BlackAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computer Systems (TOCS), Volume 6, Issue 1

Pages 109 - 133

https://doi.org/10.1145/35037.42182

Published: 01 February 1988 Publication History

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Abstract

Emerald is an object-based language and system designed for the construction of distributed programs. An explicit goal of Emerald is support for object mobility; objects in Emerald can freely move within the system to take advantage of distribution and dynamically changing environments. We say that Emerald has fine-grained mobility because Emerald objects can be small data objects as well as process objects. Fine-grained mobility allows us to apply mobility in new ways but presents implementation problems as well. This paper discusses the benefits of tine-grained mobility, the Emerald language and run-time mechanisms that support mobility, and techniques for implementing mobility that do not degrade the performance of local operations. Performance measurements of the current implementation are included.

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Mavrogeorgis NVasiladiotis CMu PKhordadi AFranke BBarbalace ARodríguez GSadayappan PSukumaran-Rajam A(2024)UNIFICO: Thread Migration in Heterogeneous-ISA CPUs without State TransformationProceedings of the 33rd ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Compiler Construction10.1145/3640537.3641565(86-99)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2024
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Xing TBarbalace AOlivier PKaraoui MWang WRavindran B(2022)H-Container: Enabling Heterogeneous-ISA Container Migration in Edge ComputingACM Transactions on Computer Systems10.1145/352445239:1-4(1-36)Online publication date: 5-Jul-2022
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Jung KGascon-Samson JPattabiraman K(2022)Poster: EdgeShell - A language for composing edge applications2022 IEEE/ACM 7th Symposium on Edge Computing (SEC)10.1109/SEC54971.2022.00039(302-304)Online publication date: Dec-2022
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Index Terms

Fine-grained mobility in the Emerald system
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Development frameworks and environments
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Abstract data types
        Control structures
      2. Language types
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Software system structures
      1. Distributed systems organizing principles
        Organizing principles for web applications

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Reviews

Reviewer: Ste´phane Leonidas Tsacas

.abstract Emerald is an object-based language and system designed for the construction of distributed programs. — From the Authors' Abstract This paper is divided into five sections. In Section 1, the introduction, the authors recall the advantages of process migration and fine grain mobility. Section 2 is an overview of Emerald. Using examples coded in Emerald, the authors show how an Emerald object is described and how abstract types are defined [1]. They explain the set of mobility primitives and a new parameter passing scheme ( call-by-move), and give a description of a process attached to an object. Section 3, titled “Implementing Mobility in Emerald,” is devoted to the description of the data structures, algorithms, and protocols involved in the kernel. Some significant differences between Emerald and other systems are given below. There are three object implementations (global, local, and direct) with separate addressing options. Emerald uses an algorithm for object searching based on Fowler's forwarding address [2], modified for efficiency. It uses direct pointers (as opposed to indirect references as in Smalltalk). Process moving is possible without code copying. Emerald uses machine registers for efficiency (and has an algorithm for moving them). There are two garbage collectors, local and distributed, which can work in parallel with Emerald processes. Section 4 covers performance. At the time this paper was written, the system worked on a network of MicroVAXes connected by a 10 megabit/second Ethernet. A newer version runs on Sun workstations [3]. Tables summarize the execution times for the mobility primitives and the network traffic in the Emerald Mail System. Section 5 is a summary of the paper. This paper is well written. It contains many references covering a large amount of work in the area. The authors discuss the implementation choices and include comparisons with other schemes. There are examples and figures, and the text is clear. Nevertheless, some knowledge in the fields of distributed computing and object-oriented languages and their implementation is desirable. This paper should be read by anyone involved in the construction of distributed systems. Other papers about Emerald have already been published (see [4,5]).

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cover image ACM Transactions on Computer Systems

ACM Transactions on Computer Systems Volume 6, Issue 1

Feb. 1988

152 pages

ISSN:0734-2071

EISSN:1557-7333

DOI:10.1145/35037

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 February 1988

Published in TOCS Volume 6, Issue 1

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3640537.3641565
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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3524452
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Di ZShao ETan G(2021)High-performance Migration Tool for Live Container in a WorkflowInternational Journal of Parallel Programming10.1007/s10766-021-00697-z49:5(658-670)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2021
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Object structure in the Emerald system

Object structure in the Emerald system