Automatic Generation of Network Protocol Gateways

The emergence of networked devices in the home has made it possible to develop applications that control a variety of household functions. However, current devices communicate via a multitude of incompatible protocols, and thus gateways are needed to translate between them. Gateway construction, however, requires an intimate knowledge of the relevant protocols and a substantial understanding of low-level network programming, which can be a challenge for many application programmers. This paper presents a generative approach to gateway construction, z2z, based on a domain-specific language for describing protocol behaviors, message structures, and the gateway logic. Z2z includes a compiler that checks essential correctness properties and produces efficient code. We have used z2z to develop a number of gateways, including SIP to RTSP, SLP to UPnP, and SMTP to SMTP via HTTP, involving a range of issues common to protocols used in the home. Our evaluation of these gateways shows that z2z ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: MIDDLEWARE
• Authors: Yérom-David Bromberg, Laurent Réveillère, Julia L. Lawall, Gilles Muller
• Keywords: Distributed And Parallel Computing, Gateway Construction, Incompatible Protocols, Low-level Network Programming, MIDDLEWARE 2009