Achieving End-to-end Predictability in the TAO Real-time CORBA ORB

End-to-end predictability of operations is essential for many fixed-priority distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) applications, such as command and control systems, manufacturing process control systems, large-scale distributed interactive simulations, and testbeam data acquisition systems. To facilitate this common requirement, the Real-Time CORBA specification defines standard middleware features that allow applications to allocate, schedule, and control key CPU, memory, and networking resources necessary to ensure end-to-end quality of service support. This paper provides two contributions to the study of Realtime CORBA middleware for DRE applications. First, it identifies potential bottlenecks and problems with respect to ensuring predictable behavior in conventional middleware. Second, we present design techniques for providing real-time QoS guarantees in middleware. We do this in the context of TAO, an open-source and widely adopted DRE middleware platform. The design te...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: RTAS
• Authors: Irfan Pyarali, Douglas C. Schmidt, Ron Cytron
• Keywords: Defines Standard Middleware, DRE Middleware Platform, Embedded Systems, Middleware, RTAS 2002