Definition of portals: a language for distributed computing
The literature contains many articles about the distribution of function and data in concurrent systems. The distribution of data, however, has been limited to sharing among a set of cooperating processes described by a program. Further, the concept of relatively permanent server processes that exist independently of processes described by a user program, but that can be connected to, is only covered slightly. The concurrent programming language Portals is defined to have characteristics amenable to the description of server processes, and of autonomous processes in general. Portals port processes use a procedure-like interface to the user. But unlike languages based on remote procedure calls, Portals puts the message construction and message passing mechanism between the user process and the server process completely at the disposal of the server programmer. This allows the server programmer to specify actions and data to be placed locally at the user process as well as at the server process. The remote procedure call is used widely as a mechanism for introducing autonomy into a system. Comparisons are made with other major languages that support distributed computing environments. Examples of using Portals to solve problems in a multi-processing environment are given.
- Research Organization:
- Kansas Univ., Lawrence (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6505846
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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