Implementation of a platform that provides a hardware and software framework from physical communication through distributed processing

Abstract

This project intends to implement a platform, named Multiware, that provides a hardware and software framework from physical communication through distributed processing. The funcional specifications of the platform are based on RM-ODP (Reference Model - Open Distributed Processing) and CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture). The Multiware platform is composed of three layers: basic software/ hardware, middleware and groupware. The basic software/hardware is composed of an operating system and communication protocols. This layer provides no distributed system support. The middleware layer is responsible to provide distributed processing facilities to the groupware layer and to the applications. This layer is composed of two sublayers: 1) multimedia Processing sublayer that allows the exchange of real-time multimedia information with a specified quality of service, and 2) ODP sublayer composed of two levels: commercial distributed systems (ORBIX) and ODP level, the latter aggregates ODP functionalities to the commercial distributed system. The groupware layer provides the functionalities demanded by different classes of applications, like CSCW (Computing Support to Colaborative Work), DAI (Distributed Artificial Intelligence), among others. Typical services supported by this layer are: dialog management, interactions protocols and handling of multimedia documents. (AU)