A threaded/flow approach to reconfigurable distributed systems and service primitives architectures

Abstract

This paper discusses a methodology for managing the assembly, control, and disassembly of large numbers of independent small-scale configurations within large-scale reconfigurable distributed systems. The approach is targeted at service primitives architectures for enhanced telecommunications networks, but can apply to more general settings such as multi-tasking supercomputers and network operations systems. ^* Study of the methods presented here was a key motivation in founding the Bell Communications Research Integrated Media Architecture Laboratory (IMAL) [1] . The Threaded/Flow approach uses data-flow constructs to assemble higher level functions from other distributed functions and resources with arbitrary degrees of decentralization. Equivalence between algorithms and hard and virtual resources is accomplished via threaded-interpretive constructs. Function autonomy, concurrency, conditional branching, pipelining, and setup/execution interaction are implicitly supported. Some elementary performance comparisons are argued. This work is motivated by telecommunications applications involving coordinated multiple-media in open architectures supporting large numbers of users and outside service vendors. In such networks it is desired that services may be flexibly constructed by the network, service vendors, or by users themselves from any meaningful combination of elementary primitives and previously defined services. Reliability, billing, call progress, real-time user control, and network management functions must be explicitly supported. These needs are handled with apparent high performance by the approach.