(12) United States Patent
`Arnold et al.
`
`USOO6393497B1
`(10) Patent No.:
`US 6,393,497 B1
`(45) Date of Patent:
`May 21, 2002
`
`(54) DOWNLOADABLE SMART PROXIES FOR
`PERFORMING PROCESSING ASSOCATED
`WITH A REMOTE PROCEDURE CALL INA
`DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM
`(75) Inventors: Kenneth C. R. C. Arnold, Lexington;
`James H. Waldo, Dracut; Robert
`Scheifler, Somerville; Ann M.
`Wollrath, Groton, all of MA (US)
`(73) Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA
`(US)
`Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this
`patent is extended or adjusted under 35
`U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days.
`
`(*) Notice:
`
`(21) Appl. No.: 09/044,930
`(22) Filed:
`Mar 20, 1998
`(51) Int. Cl." ................................................ G06F 13/00
`(52)
`... 709/330; 709/315
`(58) Field of Search ................................. 709/300, 303,
`709/310,315, 330
`
`a 1 vs
`
`EP
`E.
`EP
`
`2
`
`2
`
`C a
`
`et
`
`al.
`
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`Primary Examiner Kenneth R. Coulter
`(74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Finnegan, Henderson,
`Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, L.L.P.
`(57)
`ABSTRACT
`Use of a Smart proxy as a wrapper around a stub in a
`distributed System. Instead of receiving a stub as a result of
`a remote procedure call, a caller receives a Smart proxy
`including the Stub as an embedded object. The Smart proxy
`performs predefined processing associated with a remote
`procedure call, the processing possibly occurring before,
`during, or after a response to the call.
`s
`
`(56)
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`Birrell et al., Implementing Remote Procedure Calls, ACM
`Transactions on Computer Systems, vol. 2, No. 1, Feb. 1984,
`pp. 39–59.
`
`IBM: Somobjects Developer Toolkit Users Guide, Version
`2.1, “Chapter 6 Distributed SOM (DSOM), pp 6–1–6–90,
`Oct. 1994.
`Orfali R. et al., “The Essential Distributed Objects Survival
`Guide,” Chapter 11: Corba Commercial ORBs, John Wiley
`& Sons, Inc., (1996).
`Venners, B., “Jini Technology, Out of the Box”, Javaworld,
`Online, pp. 1-4, Dec. 1998.
`
`* cited by examiner
`
`APPL-1006 / Page 5 of 20
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`APPL-1006 / Page 6 of 20
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`U.S. Patent
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`U.S. Patent
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`APPL-1006 / Page 10 of 20
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`U.S. Patent
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`May 21, 2002
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`Sheet 6 of 8
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`U.S. Patent
`
`May 21, 2002
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`Sheet 7 of 8
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`US 6,393,497 B1
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`CLENT TRANSMITS ACALL OR REGUEST
`FOR A PARTICULAR OBJECT
`
`701
`
`
`
`SERVER RECEIVES THE CALL
`
`702
`
`703
`
`SERVER RETURNSA SMART PROXY WITH AN
`EMBEDDED STUBIN RESPONSE TO THE CALL
`
`CLIENT INVOKES METHOD ON SMART PROXY
`
`
`
`
`
`705
`
`PRE-PROCESSING
`REOURED?
`
`704
`7O6
`YES PERFORMLOCAL
`PRE-PROCESSENG
`
`
`
`707
`
`METHOD SERVICED
`LOCALY?
`
`YES
`
`709
`
`
`
`
`
`711
`
`PERFORMLOCAL
`PROCESSING
`
`708
`
`CALL REMOTE OBJECT
`
`PERFORMREMOTE
`PROCESSING
`
`RETURN RESULT
`OF REMOTE
`PROCESSSING
`
`
`
`712
`
`
`
`POST-PROCESSING
`REOURED?
`
`
`
`
`
`714
`
`NO
`RETURN METHOD
`CALL RESULT
`
`PERFORM (LOCAL)
`YES POST-PROCESSING
`
`713
`
`FIG. 7
`
`APPL-1006 / Page 12 of 20
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`U.S. Patent
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`Sheet 8 of 8
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`US 6,393,497 B1
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`800
`
`PROCESSING
`NVOKED
`
`UPDATED
`PROCESSING
`REOURED?
`
`
`
`
`
`DOWNLOAD
`CODE AND
`UPDATE
`PROCESSING
`
`
`
`
`
`802
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`
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`804
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`PERFORM
`PROCESSING
`
`FIG. 8
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`US 6,393,497 B1
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`1
`DOWNLOADABLE SMART PROXES FOR
`PERFORMING PROCESSING ASSOCATED
`WITH A REMOTE PROCEDURE CALL INA
`DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM
`
`REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
`Provisional U.S. patent application No. 60/076,048,
`entitled “Distributed Computing System,” filed on Feb. 26,
`1998.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,923, entitled
`“Method and System for Leasing Storage,” filed on the same
`date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,838, entitled
`"Method, Apparatus, and Product for Leasing of Delegation
`Certificates in a Distributed System,” filed on the same date
`herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,834, entitled
`“Method, Apparatus and Product for Leasing of Group
`Membership in a Distributed System,” filed on the same date
`herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,916, entitled
`“Leasing for Failure Detection,” filed on the same date
`herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/144933, entitled
`“Method for Transporting Behavior in Event Based
`System,” filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044.919, entitled
`“Deferred Reconstruction of Objects and Remote Loading
`for Event Notification in a Distributed System,” filed on the
`Same date here with.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044.938, entitled
`"Methods and Apparatus for Remote Method Invocation,”
`filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/045,652, entitled
`“Method and System for Deterministic Hashes to Identify
`Remote Methods, filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,790, entitled
`“Method and Apparatus for Determining Status of Remote
`Objects in a Distributed System,” filed on the same date
`herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,917, entitled
`“Suspension and Continuation of Remote Methods,” and
`filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,835, entitled
`“Method and System for Multi-Entry and Multi-Template
`Matching in a Database,” filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,839, entitled
`“Method and System for In-Place Modifications in a
`Database,” filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,945, entitled
`“Method and System for Typesafe Attribute Matching in a
`Database,” filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,931, entitled
`“Dynamic Lookup Service in a Distributed System,” filed on
`the same date here with.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,939, entitled
`“ Apparatus and Method for Providing Downloadable Code
`for Use in Communicating with a Device in a Distributed
`System,” filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,826, entitled
`“Method and System for Facilitating Access to a Lookup
`Service, filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application No. 09/030,840, entitled “Method
`and Apparatus for Dynamic Distributed Computing Over a
`Network, ' and filed on Feb. 26, 1998.
`
`2
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044.932, entitled
`“ Apparatus and Method for Dynamically Verifying Infor
`mation in a Distributed System,” filed on the same date
`herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,936, entitled “An
`Interactive Design Tool for Persistent Shared Memory
`Spaces, filed on the same date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,934, entitled
`“Polymorphic Token Based Control,” filed on the same date
`herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044.915, entitled
`"Stack-Based Access Control, filed on the same date here
`with.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,944, entitled
`“Stack-Based Security Requirements, filed on the same
`date herewith.
`U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,837, entitled
`“Per-Method Designation of Security Requirements, filed
`on the same date here with.
`
`15
`
`FIELD OF THE INVENTION
`The present invention relates to a System and method for
`transmitting objects between machines in a distributed Sys
`tem and more particularly relates to transmission of a
`representation of a remote object including code for local
`processing.
`
`25
`
`BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
`Distributed programs which concentrate on point-to-point
`data transmission can often be adequately and efficiently
`handled using Special-purpose protocols for remote terminal
`access and file transfer. Such protocols are tailored specifi
`cally to the one program and do not provide a foundation on
`which to build a variety of distributed programs (e.g.,
`distributed operating Systems, electronic mail Systems, com
`puter conferencing Systems, etc.).
`While conventional transport Services can be used as the
`basis for building distributed programs, these Services
`exhibit many organizational problems, Such as the use of
`different data types in different machines, lack of facilities
`for Synchronization, and no provision for a simple program
`ming paradigm.
`Distributed systems usually contain a number of different
`types of machines interconnected by communications net
`WorkS. Each machine has its own internal data types, its own
`address alignment rules, and its own operating System. This
`heterogeneity causes problems when building distributed
`Systems. As a result, program developerS must include in
`programs developed for Such heterogeneous distributed SyS
`tems the capability of ensuring that information is handled
`and interpreted consistently in different machines.
`However, one Simplification is afforded by noting that a
`large proportion of programs use a request and response
`interaction between processes where the initiator (i.e., pro
`gram initiating a communication) is blocked out until the
`response is returned and is thus idle during this time. This
`can be modeled by a procedure call mechanism between
`processes. One Such mechanism is referred to as the remote
`procedure call (RPC).
`RPC is a mechanism for providing Synchronized commu
`nication between two processes (e.g., program, applet, etc.)
`running on the same machine or different machines. In a
`Simple case, one process, e.g., a client program, Sends a
`message to another process, e.g., a Server program. In this
`case, it is not necessary for the processes to be Synchronized
`
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`3
`either when the a message is Sent or received. It is possible
`for the client program to transmit the message and then
`begin a new activity, or for the Server program's environ
`ment to buffer the incoming message until the Server pro
`gram is ready to process a new message.
`RPC, however, imposes constraints on Synchronism
`because it closely models the local procedure call, which
`requires passing parameters in one direction, blocking the
`calling process (i.e., the client program) until the called
`procedure of the Server program is complete, and then
`returning a response. RPC thus involves two message
`transfers, and the Synchronization of the two processes for
`the duration of the call.
`The R-PC mechanism is usually implemented in two
`processing parts using the local procedure call paradigm,
`one part being on the client Side and the other part being on
`the server side. Both of these parts will be described below
`with reference to FIG. 1.
`FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the flow of call informa
`tion using an RPC mechanism. As shown in FIG. 1, a client
`program 100 issues a call (step 102). The RPC mechanism
`101 then packs the call as arguments of a call packet (Step
`103), which the RPC mechanism 101 then transmits to a
`server program 109 (step 104). The call packet also contains
`information to identify the client program 100 that first sent
`the call. After the call packet is transmitted (step 104), the
`RPC mechanism 101 enters a wait state during which it
`waits for a response from the server program 109.
`The RPC mechanism 108 for the server program 109
`(which may be the same RPC mechanism as the RPC
`mechanism 101 when the server program 109 is on the same
`platform as the client program 100) receives the call packet
`(step 110), unpacks the arguments of the call from the call
`packet (step 111), identifies, using the call information, the
`server program 109 to which the call was addressed, and
`provides the call arguments to the server program 109.
`The server program receives the call (step 112), processes
`the call by invoking the appropriate procedure (Step 115),
`and returns a response to the RPC mechanism 108 (step
`116). The RPC mechanism 108 then packs the response in a
`response packet (Step 114) and transmits it to the client
`program 100 (step 113).
`Receiving the response packet (step 107) triggers the RPC
`mechanism 101 to exit the wait state and unpack the
`response from the response packet (step 106). RPC 101 then
`provides the response to the client program 100 in response
`to the call (step 105). This is the process flow of the typical
`RPC mechanism modeled after the local procedure call
`paradigm. Since the RPC mechanism uses the local proce
`dure call paradigm, the client program 100 is blocked at the
`call until a response is received. Thus, the client program
`100 does not continue with its own processing after Sending
`the call; rather, it waits for a response from the Server
`program 109.
`The Java" programming language is an object-oriented
`programming language that is typically compiled into a
`platform-independent format, using a bytecode instruction
`Set, which can be executed on any platform Supporting the
`Java virtual machine (JVM). This language is described, for
`example, in a text entitled “The Java Language Specifica
`tion” by James Gosling, Bill Joy, and Guy Steele, Addison
`Wesley, 1996, which is incorporated herein by reference.
`The JVM is described, for example, in a text entitled “The
`Java Virtual Machine Specification,” by Tim Lindholm and
`Frank Yellin, Addison Wesley, 1996, which is incorporated
`herein by reference. Java and Java-based trademarks are
`
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`trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun MicroSystems,
`Inc. in the United States and other countries.
`Because the JVM may be implemented on any type of
`platform, implementing distributed progra