Serialization of distributed execution-state in Java

In this paper we present a mechanism for serializing the execution-state of a distributed Java application that is implemented on a conventional Object Request Broker (ORB) architecture such as Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI). To support capturing and reestablishment of distributed execution-state, we developed a byte code transformer that adds this functionality to a Java application by extracting execution-state from the application code. An important benefit of the serialization mechanism is its portability. It can transparently be integrated into any legacy Java application. Furthermore, it does require no modifications to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) or to the underlying ORB. The serialization mechanism can serve many purposes such as migrating execution-state over the network or storing it on disk. In particular, we describe the implementation of a prototype for repartitioning distributed Java applications at runtime. Proper partitioning of distributed objects over the different machines is critical to the global performance of the distributed application. Methods for partitioning exist, and employ a graph-based model of the application being partitioned. Our serialization mechanism enables then applying these methods at any point in an ongoing distributed computation.Revised and extended paper for post-proceedingsstatus: publishe