Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- research:dgc [2006/07/01 15:27] – elisag
+++ research:dgc [2006/07/01 15:30] – elisag
@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 ==== Motivation ====
-Mobile ad hoc networks represent a new kind of distributed system with distinguishing characteristics that pose new challenges in the field of distributed garbage collection (DGC). In particular, DGC must deal with a highly partial disconnected network topology where remote references may be inaccessible for unpredicted amount of time. DGC mechanisms typically determine the reachability of the remote objects by means of communication between the nodes involved. However, in a mobile setting where disconnections are the rule rather the exception, the system cannot determine how long it should wait for a connection to be restored. Knowing when the communication will be restored depends on how the application reacts to disconnections. Some applications may wait for the connection to be restored to resume its computation while some others may continue their computation with a substitute service instead. Sometimes the geographic location of the devices or identify information may also influence the behaviour of mobile applications. Therefore, DGC process depends not only on the object graph but also on the //context// in which the objects are themselves - understanding context as the semantics of the application or the role of the reference in the network, but also implicit context such as the location of devices.
+Mobile ad hoc networks represent a new kind of distributed system with distinguishing characteristics that pose new challenges in the field of distributed garbage collection (DGC). In particular, DGC must deal with a highly partial disconnected network topology where remote references may be inaccessible for unpredicted amount of time. DGC mechanisms typically determine the reachability of the remote objects by means of communication between the nodes involved. However, in a mobile setting where disconnections are the rule rather the exception, the system cannot determine how long it should wait for a connection to be restored. Knowing when the communication will be restored depends on how the application reacts to disconnections. Some applications may wait for the connection to be restored to resume its computation while some others may continue their computation with a substitute service instead. Sometimes the geographic location of the devices or identify information may also influence the behaviour of mobile applications. DGC thus depends not only on the object graph but also on the //context// in which the objects are themselves - understanding context as the semantics of the application or the role of the reference in the network, but also implicit context such as the location of devices.
 Our position is that reclaiming remote objects can no longer be a low level concern tackled in a transparent way via a DGC mechanism. On the contrary, we admit that automatic transparent DGC is irreconcilable with the characteristics intrinsic to mobile networks. Our research proposes a novel treatment of the memory management called //semi-automatic garbage collection// based on the collaboration between the developer and collector which will be guided by the developer to determine the reachability of the remote objects.