Design and Implementation of the Rebeca Publish/ Subscribe Middleware

• Published in: From Active Data Management to Event-Based Systems and More Vol. 6462; pp. 124 - 140
• Main Authors: Parzyjegla, Helge, Graff, Daniel, Schröter, Arnd, Richling, Jan, Mühl, Gero
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Springer Berlin / Heidelberg 2010; Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Discrete Event Simulation; Feature Composition; Functional Modularity; Message Stream; Overlay Link
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-17226-7_8
• ISBN: 3642172253; 9783642172250
• ISSN: 0302-9743

Publish/subscribe is used increasingly often as a communication mechanism in loosely-coupled distributed applications. Research and product development have focused mostly on efficiency issues and neglected methodological support to build concrete middleware implementations so far. In this paper, we present the novel design of the Rebeca publish/subscribe middleware that is based on the experience gained with previous versions. As basic design concept, we focus on a modular pipeline architecture that is built around a minimal, but extendable publish/subscribe core. With respect to modularity, we employ the concept of features that are well-defined aspects of a software system’s functionality, encapsulated in pluggable modules, and, thereby, facilitate a separation of concerns. We address the composition of features and show how this is realized in Rebeca’s pipeline architecture with independently working plugins that can influence passing messages in three dedicated stages.