Simple Activation for Distributed Objects
Ann Wollrath, Geoff Wyant, and Jim Waldo
Sun Microsystems Laboratories
{ann.wollrath, geoff.wyant, jim.waldo}@east.sun.com
Abstract
In order to support long-lived distributed objects, object activation
is required. Activation allows an object to alternate between periods
of activity, where the object implementation executes in a process;
and periods of dormancy, where the object is on disk and utilizes no
system resources.
We describe an activation protocol for distributed object systems. The
protocol features overall simplicity as well as applicability to
several different activation models. We use the Modula-3 network
object system as a base for our implementation; while we make no
changes to the underlying network object subsystem, we suggest a minor
modification that could be made to the marshalling of network objects
to assist in lazy activation, our preferred activation model.
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