Distributed computing using autonomous objects

TLDR

Traditional distributed systems rely on statically compiled processes with passive messages, whereas the autonomous objects paradigm gives messages identity and behavior, allowing them to decide runtime propagation and tasks while nodes act as generic interpreters. The authors developed MESSENGERS to compose and coordinate concurrent activities in distributed environments using autonomous objects. MESSENGERS integrates autonomous object navigation with efficient dynamic linking in languages such as Java to compose and coordinate concurrent activities. The autonomous objects paradigm proved more flexible than the communicating objects paradigm, enabling post‑deployment behavior changes.

Abstract

Most existing distributed systems are structured as statically compiled processes communicating with each other via messages. The system's intelligence is embodied in the processes, while the messages contain simple, passive pieces of information. This is referred to as the communicating objects paradigm. In the autonomous objects paradigm, a message has its own identity and behavior. It decides at runtime where it wants to propagate and what tasks to perform there; the nodes become simply generic interpreters that enable messages to navigate and compute. In this scenario, an application's intelligence is embodied in and carried by messages as they propagate through the network. The autonomous objects paradigm is more flexible than the communicating objects paradigm because it allows developers to change the program's behavior after it has started to run. We based our system, MESSENGERS, on autonomous objects, and intended it for the composition and coordination of concurrent activities in a distributed environment. It combines powerful navigational capabilities found in other autonomous objects based systems with efficient dynamic linking mechanisms supported by some new programming languages, like Java.