Pattern-Driven Partitioning in Designing Distributed Object Applications

One of the fundamental challenges in designing distributed object applications (DOAs) is application partitioning. Partitioning is a technique through which all the necessary partitions or components of the application, particularly distributable ones, are discovered. This research proposes a technique to help designers in partitioning DOAs such that a justifiable application structure is achieved. The technique combines the decomposition approach from the software architecture field with the techniques to discover subsystems found in some object-oriented methods. The technique is represented as Partitioning Pattern Language and Partitioning Process Patterns. The technique is developed within the context of an existing object-oriented method, called Discovery [Sim], which serves as the framework for object-oriented modelling.