Abstract
We present here recent work at NPAC aimed at developing WebFlow – a general purpose Web-based visual interactive programming environment for coarse grain distributed computing. We follow the 3-tier architecture with the central control and integration WebVM layer in tier-2, interacting with the visual graph editor applets in tier-1 (front-end) and the legacy systems in tier-3. WebVM is given by a mesh of Java Web servers such as Jeeves from JavaSoft or Jigsaw from MIT/W3C. All system control structures are implemented as URL-addressable servlets which enable Web browser-based authoring, monitoring, publication, documentation and software distribution tools for distributed computing. We view WebFlow/WEbVM as a promising programming paradigm and co-ordination model for the exploding volume of Web/Java software, and we illustrate it in a set of ongoing application development activities. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Highlights
As anticipated in our WebWindows ansatz WebHPCC96], current Web systems, fueled by Java, evolve rapidly towards a powerful open infrastructure that will enable world-wide distributed computing
In the current Web/Java expansion phase, we are witnessing a wide variety of new interesting tools and technologies but the overall integration framework is still missing and the software reuse remains di cult
At NPAC, we are monitoring the emergent Web technologies pertaining to the domain of world wide scalable distributed computing and we are designing and prototyping a visual graph based data ow environment, WebFlow, using the mesh of Java Web Servers as a control and coordination middleware, Web based Virtual Machine (WebVM)
Summary
As anticipated in our WebWindows ansatz WebHPCC96], current Web systems, fueled by Java, evolve rapidly towards a powerful open infrastructure that will enable world-wide distributed computing. At NPAC, we are monitoring the emergent Web technologies pertaining to the domain of world wide scalable distributed computing and we are designing and prototyping a visual graph based data ow environment, WebFlow, using the mesh of Java Web Servers as a control and coordination middleware, WebVM. Modules run asynchronously, are mobile, i.e., can be instantiated on any WebVM server, and communicate by exchanging Java objects along their data ow channels. For example: Jigsaw/Jeeves develop the concept or resources/servlets as control encapsulation units; Infospheres develops portlets/mailboxes as terminals for communication channels; Habanero is a multi-server system; and so on
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