Dynamic Server Selection in Distributed Object Computing Systems

In this paper, we address the problem of dynamic server selection among a set of objectservers, as the ones defined by CORBA and DCOM, providing the same service type. Theseservers are not necessarily replicas but may have different interfaces and belong to differentservice providers. As a solution, we propose a novel architecture that we call LoDACE. Thisarchitecture has been designed to allow dynamic server selection and load sharing indistributed object computing environments. Specifically, the architecture prevents theoccurrence of major load imbalances that can cause failures in distributed applications. Thearchitecture is based on both the use of a trading service and the monitoring of the servers’load. Our interest in the trader is motivated by the need to discover object serversdynamically. LoDACE allows service requests to be processed by lightly loaded serversselected dynamically. The expected results are better performances in terms of responsivenessand availability of servers.