A Scalable Location Service for Distributed Objects

We describe a service for locating distributed objects using location-independent object identifiers. An object in our model is physically distributed, with multiple copies simultaneously active on different machines. Processes must bind to an object in order to invoke its methods. Part of the binding protocol is concerned with contacting the object, which offers one or more contact points. An object can change its contact points in the course of time, thus exhibiting migration behavior. Finding an object’s contact points is the essence of our location service.