DISTRIBUTED OBJECTS AND

REMOTE INVOCATION

Introduction
This chapter is concerned with programming models for
distributed applications . . .
Familiar programming models have been extended to apply
to distributed programs:
- Remote procedure call (RPC)
- Remote method invocation (RMI)
- Event-based programming model

Introduction
Middleware
The middleware layer uses protocols based on messages
between processes to provide its higher-level abstractions. .
- Location transparency
- Communication protocols
- Computer hardware
- Operating systems
- Use of several programming languages.

Middleware layers

Applications
RMI, RPC and events
Request reply protocol
External data representation
Operating System

Middleware
layers

Interfaces
Communication between modules can be by procedure calls
or by direct access to the variables . . .
Interface - to control the possible interactions between
modules.
Interfaces in distributed systems - In a distributed program, the
modules can run in separate processes. . .

Interfaces
Parameter passing mechanisms . . .
Types of parameters in the specification of a method:
- Input parameters
- Output parameters
- parameter used for both input and output
Pointers cannot be passed . . .

Interfaces
Client-server model: Service interface
- refers to the specification of the procedures offered by a
server.
Distributed object model: Remote interface
- specifies the methods of an object that are available for
invocation by objects in other processes.
- methods can pass objects as arguments and results . . .
- references to remote objects may also be passed.

Interfaces
Interface definition languages (IDLs):
An RMI mechanism can be integrated with a particular with
a particular programming language if it includes a notation
for defining interfaces, . . .

Interfaces
Interface definition languages (IDLs):
- designed to allow objects implemented in different
languages to invoke one another.
- provides a notation for defining interfaces
- each of the parameters of a method may be described as
for input or output in addition to having its type specified.

CORBA IDL example

// In file Person.idl
struct Person {
string name;
string place;
long year;
};
interface PersonList {
readonly attribute string listname;
void addPerson(in Person p);
void getPerson(in string name, out Person p);
long number();
};

CORBA IDL example

The interface named PersonList specifies the methods
available for RMl in a remote object that implements that
interface.
Ex: the method addPerson specifies its argument as in,
meaning that it is an input argument;
the method getPerson that retrieves an instance of Person
by name specifies its second argument as out, meaning that
it is an output argument.

Communication between distributed objects

The object-based model for a distributed system extends the
model supported by object-oriented programming
languages to make it apply to distributed objects.
Communication between distributed objects - using RMI
The object model
Distributed objects
The distributed object model
Design issues for RMI
Implementation of RMI
Distributed garbage collection

The object model

An object-oriented program consists of a collection of
interacting objects, . . .
Object references:
- to invoke a method in an object, the object reference and
method name are given, together with any necessary
arguments.
Interfaces:
- an interface defines the signatures of a set of methods
- an object will provide a particular interface if its class
contains code that implements the methods of that interface
- an interface also defines types

The object model

Actions:
- Action in an object-oriented program is initiated by an
object invoking a method in another object.
An invocation of a method can have three effects:
1. the state of the receiver may be changed;
2. a new object may be instantiated; and
3. further invocations on methods in other objects may take
place.

The object model

Exceptions
- Programs can encounter many sorts of errors and
unexpected conditions . . .
- Exceptions provide a clean way to deal with error
conditions without complicating the code.
Garbage collection
- When a language does not support garbage collection, the
programmer has to deal with it.

Distributed objects
- The state of an object consists of the values of its instance
variables. In the object-based paradigm the state of a
program is partitioned into separate parts, each of which is
associated with an object.
- Distributed object systems may adopt the client-server
architecture. Objects are managed by servers . . .
- Distributed objects can assume other architectural models.
- Having client and server objects in different processes
enforces encapsulation. The state of an object can be
accessed only by the methods of the object . . .

The distributed object model

- Each process contains a collection of objects
- some objects can receive both local and remote
invocations
Method invocations between objects in different processes,
whether in the same computer or not, are known as
remote method invocations

Remote and local method invocations

local

remote
invocation
A

C
local E
invocation
invocation
local
invocation
D

remote
invocation

The distributed object model

Remote objects: objects that can receive remote invocations.
Remote object reference: this should be available.
Remote interface: Every remote object has a remote interface
that specifies which of its methods can be invoked remotely.

The distributed object model

Remote object reference: An identifier that can be used
throughout a distributed system.
Remote interface: The class of a remote object implements the
methods of its remote interface.
Objects in other processes can invoke only the methods
that belong to its remote interface.
- CORBA provides an IDL used for defining remote
interfaces.
- In Java RMI, remote interfaces are defined in the same
way as any other Java interface.
They extend an interface named Remote.

A remote object and its remote interface

remoteobject

remote
interface

Data
m1
m2
m3

implementation
of methods

m4
m5
m6

The distributed object model

Actions in a distributed object system:
- is initiated by a method invocation, which may result in
further invocations on methods in other objects. . .
- when an action leads to the instantiation of a new object,
that object will normally live with in the process where
instantiation is requested.
if the newly instantiated object has a remote interface, . . .
- distributed applications may provide remote objects with
methods for instantiating objects which can be accessed by
RMI.

Instantiation of remote objects

L
C

remote
invocation

instantiateinstantiate
M

remote
invocation

The distributed object model

Garbage collection in a distributed-object system:
- Distributed garbage collection is generally achieved by
cooperation between the existing local garbage collector
and an added module.
Exceptions:
- Remote method invocation should be able to raise
exceptions that are due to distribution as well as those
raised during the execution of the method invoked.

Design Issues for RMI

Design issues in making RMI a natural extension of local
method invocation:
- The choice of invocation semantics.
- The level of transparency that is desirable for RMI.

Design Issues for RMI

RMI invocation semantics - the doOperation can be
implemented in different ways to provide different delivery
guarantees. The main choices are:
Retry request message
Duplicate filtering
Retransmission of results
Combinations of these choices lead to a variety of possible
semantics for the reliability of remote invocations.

Invocation semantics

Fault tolerance measures

Retransmit request
message

Duplicate
filtering

Invocation
semantics

Re-execute procedure
or retransmit reply

No

Not applicable

Not applicable

Maybe

Yes

No

Re-execute procedure

At-least-once

Yes

Yes

Retransmit reply

At-most-once

Design Issues for RMI

Maybe invocation semantics:
- The remote method may be executed once or not at all.
- None of the fault tolerance measures is applied.
- Types of failure:
omission failures;
crash failures.
- if the result message has not been received after a timeout
and there are no retries, . . .
- Useful only for applications in which occasional failed
invocations are acceptable .

Design Issues for RMI

At-least-once invocation semantics:
- The invoker receives either a result or an exception
informing it that no result was received.
- Can be achieved by the retransmission of request
messages.
- Types of failure:
crash failures;
arbitrary failures.
- May be used if all of the methods in the remote interfaces
are idempotent operations.

Design Issues for RMI

At-most-once invocation semantics:
- The invoker receives either a result or an exception
informing it that no result was received.
- Can be achieved by using all of the fault tolerance
measures.

Design Issues for RMI

Transparency: Remote invocation can be made to look like
local invocation. . . .
- Remote invocations are more vulnerable to failures than
local ones
impossible to distinguish between failure of the network & of
the remote server process
- The latency of a remote invocation is several orders of
magnitude greater than that of a local one.

Implementation of RMI
Several separate objects and modules are involved.
Illustration: an application-level object A invokes a method in a
remote application-level object B for which it holds a remote
object reference.

The role of proxy and skeleton in remote method invocation

server

client
object Aproxy for B

Request

skeleton
& dispatcher
for Bs class

remote
object B

Reply

Remote Communication
reference module module

servant
CommunicationRemote reference
module
module

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Implementation of RMI
Communication module: The two cooperating communication
modules carry out the request-reply protocol.
- This module uses only the first three items of the requestreply message - message type, requestId and object
reference
- These modules are together responsible for providing a
specified invocation semantics.
- The communication module in the server selects the
dispatcher for the class of the object to be invoked, passing
on its local reference, . . .

Implementation of RMI
Remote reference module:
- is responsible for translating between local and remote
object references and for creating remote object references.
- the remote reference module in each process has a
remote object table that records the correspondence
between local object references in that process and remote
object references.

Implementation of RMI
The remote object table includes:
- An entry for all the remote objects held by the process.
Ex: the remote object B will be recorded in the table at the
server.
- An entry for each local proxy.
Ex: the proxy for B will be recorded in the table at the client.

Implementation of RMI
Actions of the remote reference module:
o When a remote object is to be passed as argument or result
for the first time, the remote reference module is asked to
create a remote object reference, which it adds to its table.
o When a remote object reference arrives in a request or
reply message, the remote reference module is asked for
the corresponding local object reference.

Implementation of RMI
Servants:
- It is an instance of a class which provides the body of a
remote object.
- eventually handles the remote requests passed on by the
corresponding skeleton.

Implementation of RMI
The RMI software:
- A layer of software between the application-level objects
and the communication and remote reference modules.
- Roles of the middleware objects:
Proxy
Dispatcher
Skeleton

Implementation of RMI
Proxy:
- makes remote method invocation transparent to clients by
behaving like a local object to the invoker.
- hides the details of the remote object reference, the
marshalling of arguments, etc.
- There is one proxy for each remote object for which a
process holds a remote object reference.

Implementation of RMI
Dispatcher:
- A server has one dispatcher and skeleton for each class
representing a remote object.
- It receives the request message from the communication
module, uses the methodld to select the appropriate method
in the skeleton & passes on the request message.

Implementation of RMI
Skeleton:
- The class of a remote object has a skeleton, which
implements the methods in the remote interface.
- A skeleton method unmarshals the arguments in the
request message and invokes the corresponding method in
the servant.
- It waits for the invocation to complete and then marshals
the result, together with any exceptions, in a reply message
to the sending proxy's method.

Implementation of RMI
The binder:
- a separate service that maintains a table containing
mappings from textual names to remote object references.
- used by servers to register their remote objects by name &
by clients to look them up.
Server threads:
- to avoid the execution of one remote invocation delaying
the execution of another, servers generally allocate a
separate thread for the execution or each remote
invocation.

Implementation of RMI
Activation of remote objects:
- Some applications require that information survive for long
periods of time. . .
- Servers that manage remote objects can be started
whenever they are needed by clients.
- Processes that start server processes to host remote
objects are called activators.

Implementation of RMI
A remote object is described as active when it is available
for invocation within a running process, whereas it is called
passive if is not currently active but can be made active.
A passive object consists of two pans:
the implementation of its methods; and
its state in the marshalled form.

Implementation of RMI
Activation
- create an active object from the corresponding passive
object
- by creating a new instance of its class and initializing its
instance variables from the stored state.
An activator is responsible for:
Registering passive objects that are available for activation
Starting named server processes and activating remote
objects in them
Keeping track of the locations of the servers for remote
objects that it has already activated

Implementation of RMI
Persistent object stores
- Persistent object: An object that is guaranteed to live
between activations of processes.
- a persistent object store will manage very large numbers
of persistent objects.
- Activation is normally transparent
- Persistent objects that are no longer needed in main
memory can be passivated.

Implementation of RMI
Object location
- In the simple case, a remote object reference can act as
an address. . .
- A location service helps clients to locate remote objects
from their remote object references.
It uses a database that maps remote object references to
their current locations

Implementation of RMI
Distributed garbage collection
- the aim is to ensure that if a local or remote reference to
an object is still held anywhere, then the object will continue
to exist.

Implementation of RMI
Java distributed garbage collection algorithm
- based on reference counting.
- whenever a remote object reference enters a process, a
proxy will be created.
- the server should be informed of the new proxy at the
client.
- later when there is no longer a proxy at the client, the
server should be informed.

Implementation of RMI
Each server process maintains a set of the names of the
processes that hold remote object references for each of its
remote objects;
Ex: B.holders is the set of client processes that have
proxies for object B.
When a client C first receives a remote reference to a
particular remote object, B, it makes an addRef(B)
invocation to the server of that remote object and then
creates a proxy;
the server adds C to B.holders.

Implementation of RMI
When a client C's garbage collector notices that a proxy for
remote object B is no longer reachable, it makes a
removeRef(B) invocation to the corresponding server and
then deletes the proxy;
the server removes C from B.holders.
When B.holders is empty, the server's local garbage
collector will reclaim the space occupied by B unless there
are any local holders.

Implementation of RMI
This algorithm is intended to be carried out by means of
pairwise request-reply communication with at-most-once
invocation semantics between the remote reference
modules in processes.
The algorithm tolerates communication failures:
- if addRef(B) call returns an exception . . .
- if removeRef(B) fails . . . leases
The algorithm tolerates failure of client processes . . . leases

Remote procedure call

- A client program calls a procedure in another program
running in a server process.
- Servers may be clients of other servers to allow chains of
RPCs.
- A server process defines in its service interface the
procedures that are available for calling remotely.
- May be implemented to have one of the choices of
invocation semantics.

Role of client and server stub procedures in RPC in the

context of a procedural language

client process

server process
Request

client stub
procedure
client
program

Communication
module

Reply

server stub
procedure
Communication
dispatcher
module

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service
procedure

Remote procedure call

The software that supports RPC
- no remote reference modules are required.
- Client that accesses a service includes one stub
procedure for each procedure in the service interface.
- Role of a stub procedure is similar to that of a proxy
method.

Remote procedure call

The software that supports RPC
- Server process contains a dispatcher together with one
server stub procedure and one service procedure for each
procedure in the service interface.
- The dispatcher selects one of the server stub procedures
according to the procedure identifier in the request
message.
- A server stub procedure is like a skeleton method.
- The service procedures implement the procedures in the
service interface.

Events and notifications

Events - the actions that the user performs on objects that
cause changes in the objects that maintain the state of the
application.
Distributed event-based systems extend the local event model
by allowing multiple objects at different locations to be
notified of events taking place at an object
The publish-subscribe paradigm.
Notifications - Objects that represent events
- Notifications may be stored, sent in messages, queried
and applied in a variety of orders to different things.

Events and notifications

Two main characteristics of distributed event-based systems:
Heterogeneous:
- components in a distributed system that were not
designed to interoperate can be made to work together.
Asynchronous:
- notifications are sent asynchronously by event-generating
objects to all the objects that have subscribed to them.
- publishers and subscribers need to be decoupled.

Events and notifications

Simple dealing room system
- The task is to allow dealers using computers to see the
latest information about the market prices of the stocks they
deal in.
- The market price for a single named stock is represented
by an object with several instance variables.
- The information arrives in the dealing room from several
different external sources . . .
- It is collected by processes called information providers.

Events and notifications

Simple dealing room system
The system can be modelled by
An information provider process that continuously receives
new trading information from a single external source and
applies it to the appropriate stock objects
A dealer process creates an object to represent each named
stock that the user asks to have displayed.

Dealing room system

Dealers computer
Dealer

Dealers computer

External
source
Notification

Notification

Notification

Information
provider Notification

Notification

Dealer

Notification

Notification
Dealers computer

Dealers computer
Notification
Information
provider

Notification
Notification

Dealer

Dealer

External
source

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Events and notifications

Event types
- an event source can generate events of one or more
different types.
- each event has attributes that specify information about
that event.
- types and attributes are used both in subscribing to events
and in notifications.

Participants in distributed event notification

An architecture designed to decouple the publishers from the
subscribers.
Event service - maintains a database of published events and
of subscribers' interests.

Architecture for distributed event notification

Event service
subscriber

object of interest

1.

notification

object of interest
2.
object of interest
3.

observer

notification

subscriber
notification

observer

subscriber
notification

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Architecture for distributed event notification

The object of interest
Event
Notification
Subscriber
Observer objects
Publisher

Architecture for distributed event notification

Three cases:
1. An object of interest inside the event service without an
observer.
2. An object of interest inside the event service with an
observer.
3. An object of interest outside the event service.

Architecture for distributed event notification

Delivery semantics
A variety of different delivery guarantees can be provided for
notifications
- the one that is chosen should depend on the requirements
of applications.

Architecture for distributed event notification

Roles for observers
Forwarding
Filtering of notifications
Patterns of events
Notification mailboxes

Distributed object application. . .

Locate remote objects
Communicate with remote objects
Load class bytecodes for objects that are passed as
parameters or return values

An Illustration of a distributed object application.

Interfaces and Classes in the java.rmi package.

Interfaces and Classes . . .

The RemoteObject class implements the Remote interface
while the other classes extend RemoteObject.
Implementor of a remote object must implement the Remote
interface, which must satisfy the following conditions:
1. It must extend the interface Remote.
2. Each remote method declaration in the remote interface
must include the exception RemoteException

Interfaces and Classes . . .

The RemoteObject class:
RMI server functions are provided by the class RemoteObject
and its subclasses RemoteServer, UnicastRemoteObject
and Activatable.

RMlregistry
Binder for Java RMI.
An instance of RMlregistry must run on every server computer
that hosts remote objects.
Maintains a table mapping textual, URL-style names to
references to remote objects hosted on that computer.
Accessed by methods of the Naming class

The Naming class of Java RMIregistry

void rebind (String name, Remote obj)
This method is used by a server to register the identifier of a remote
object by name.
void bind (String name, Remote obj)
This method can alternatively be used by a server to register a remote
object by name, but if the name is already bound to a remote object
reference an exception is thrown.
void unbind (String name, Remote obj)
This method removes a binding.
Remote lookup(String name)
This method is used by clients to look up a remote object by name. A
remote object reference is returned.
String [] list()
This method returns an array of Strings containing the names bound in
the registry.
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Implementation of a simple RMI system

This RMI system contains the following files:

HelloWorld.java: The remote interface.

HelloWorldClient.java: The client application in the RMI system.

HelloWorldServer.java: The server application in the RMI

system.

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HelloWorld.java

import java.rmi.Remote;
import java.rmi.RemoteException;
//Classname: HelloWorld
//Comment: The remote interface.
public interface HelloWorld extends Remote {
String helloWorld() throws RemoteException;
}

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HelloWorldClient.java
Client program: The client
- starts by using a binder to look up a remote object
reference.
- continues by sending RMls to that remote object or to
others

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HelloWorldClient.java

import java.rmi.Naming;
import java.rmi.RemoteException;
/*
Classname: HelloWorldClient
Comment: The RMI client.
*/

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HelloWorldClient.java
public class HelloWorldClient {
static String message = "blank";
static HelloWorld obj = null;

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HelloWorldClient.java
public static void main(String args[])
{
try {
obj = (HelloWorld)Naming.lookup("//"+ "kvist.cs.umu.se"+
"/HelloWorld");
message = obj.helloWorld();
System.out.println("Message from the RMI-server was: \""
+ message + "\"");
}
catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("HelloWorldClient exception: "
+ e.getMessage());
e.printStackTrace();
}
}}

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HelloWorldServer.java
import java.rmi.Naming;
import java.rmi.RemoteException;
import java.rmi.RMISecurityManager;
import java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject;

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HelloWorldServer.java
public class HelloWorldServer extends nicastRemoteObject
implements HelloWorld {
public HelloWorldServer() throws RemoteException {
super();
}
public String helloWorld() {
System.out.println("Invocation to helloWorld was
succesful!");
return "Hello World from RMI server!";
}

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HelloWorldServer.java
public static void main(String args[]) {
try {
// Create an object of the HelloWorldServer class.
HelloWorldServer obj = new HelloWorldServer();
// Bind this object instance to the name "HelloServer".
Naming.rebind("HelloWorld", obj);
System.out.println("HelloWorld bound in registry");
}
catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("HelloWorldServer error: " +
e.getMessage());
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Instructors Guide for Coulouris, Dollimore and Kindberg Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design Edn. 4
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