Exploiting recursion to simplify RPC communication architectures

Abstract

Current communication architectures suffer from a growing collection of protocols in the host operating systems, gateways and applications, resulting in increasing implementation and maintenance cost, unreliability and difficulties with interoperability. The remote procedure call (RPC) approach has been used in some distributed systems to contain the diversity of application layer protocols within the procedure call abstraction. However, the same technique cannot be applied to lower layer protocols without violating the strict notion of layers. In this paper, we show how the RPC approach can be used for lower layer protocols so that the resulting “layer violations” generate a simple recursive structure. The benefits of exploiting recursion in a communication architecture are similar to those realized from its use as a programming technique; the resulting protocol architecture minimizes the complexity and duplication of protocols and mechanism, thereby reducing the cost of implementation and verification. We also sketch a redesigned DoD Internet architecture that illustrates the potential benefits of this approach. This work was sponsored in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under contract N00039-84-C-0211, by Digital Equipment Corporation, by the National Science Foundation Grant DCR-83-52048 and by ATT Information Systems.