The Information Bus: An Architecture for Extensible Distributed Systems

Annotation: A communication medium that supports the transfer of objects using either publish-subscribe or RMI. Objects are identified using hierarchical (DNS-like) names called ``subjects.'' Clients get data by subscribing to subjects. Servers name published data using subjects. Clients locate services (e.g., for RMI) by publishing interests. Thus, new servers can be introduced without altering clients. Data is disseminated using ethernet broadcast on LANs and an overlay network in the wide area. Objects are dynamically typed, so new types can be introduced (although clients can use the new types only if they know how to handle a supertype). The system supports legacy applications and services using ``adapters'' to translate between the app domain and the Information Bus object format.

BibTeX entry:

@inproceedings{oki93information,
   author = {Brian Oki and Manfred Pfluegl and Alex Siegel and Dale Skeen},
   title = {The {Information} {Bus}: {An} Architecture for Extensible
	Distributed Systems},
   booktitle = {14th {ACM} Symposium on Operating System Principals},
   address = {Asheville, NC},
   year = {1993}
}