Invocation Support for Replicated Objects

Most object-based distributed systems do not support replicated objects. Replication is crucial because it is the only means to tolerate partial failures in distributed systems. The key issue for replicated objects is an appropriate invocation support. An object O1 must invoke an object O2 always in the same fashion regardless of their own replication policies. This paper investigates the support needed to invoke replicated objects. Such support should hide both distribution and replication. After reviewing related work, the paper proposes an approach based on a model with two object layers. Application objects interact using regular invocations whereas communication objects exchange network messages in order to manage both distribution and replication. The paper gives details about the implementation of the model in the GARF system, and discusses the approach.