An Empirical Comparison of Java Remote Communication Primitives for Intra-Node Data Transmission

This paper presents a benchmarking suite that measures the performance of using sockets and eXtensible Markup Language remote procedure calls (XML-RPC) to exchange intra-node messages between Java virtual machines (JVMs). The paper also reports on an empirical study comparing sockets and XML-RPC with response time measurements from timers that use both operating system tools and Java language instrumentation. By leveraging packet filters in-side the GNU/Linux kernel, the benchmark suite also calcu-lates network resource consumption. Moreover, the frame-work interprets the response time results in light of mem-ory subsystem metrics characterizing the behavior of the JVM. The empirical findings indicate that sockets perform better when transmitting small to very large objects, while XML-RPC exhibits lower response time than sockets with extremely large bulk data transfers. The experiments reveal trade-offs in performance and thus represent the first step to-wards determining if Java remote communication primitives can support the efficient exchange of intra-node messages