DRE system performance optimization with the SMACK cache efficiency metric

System performance improvements are critical for the resource-limited environment of multiple integrated applications executing inside a single distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) system, such as integrated avionics platform or vehtronics systems. While processor caches can effectively reduce execution time there are several factors, such as cache size, system data sharing, and task execution schedule, which make it hard to quantify, predict, and optimize the cache usage of a DRE system. This article presents SMACK, a novel heuristic for estimating the hardware cache usage of a DRE system, and describes a method of varying the runtime behavior of DRE system software without (1) requiring extensive safety recertification or (2) violating the real-time scheduling deadlines. By using SMACK as a maximization target, we were able to reduce integrated DRE system execution time by an average of 2.4% and a maximum of 4.34%.     

Evolutionary multi-objective optimization of QoS-Aware Publish/Subscribe Middleware in electronics production

Computer-Aided Manufacturing using XML (CAMX) production systems are built on Message-Oriented Middleware Frameworks, offering standards-based communication among machines and control software applications. CAMX Frameworks implement Publish/Subscribe of XML messages through an entity called the Message Broker (MSB), which provides the messaging service using a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) interface. In order to create scalable frameworks, distributed MSB systems are deployed. However, the topology optimization problem arises, as clients need to be assigned to one of many MSB nodes. The problem is strictly NP-hard, and multiple optimization criteria are conflicting. A solution considering real-time systems was developed based on Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization techniques. The Framework Optimization Algorithm (FOA) is designed to work with various topologies, including federated frameworks, locally distributed clusters, and mixed environments including embedded middleware nodes. The developed FOA was tested for a case scenario based on a flexible manufacturing system running on a distributed CAMX framework, and proved to robustly converge to the optimal topology. Convergence was achieved within few seconds, demonstrating the suitability of FOA for rapid topology reconfiguration in response to changes in the system.     

Verifying distributed real-time properties of embedded systems via graph transformations and model checking

Component middleware provides dependable and efficient platforms that support key functional, and quality of service (QoS) needs of distributed real-time embedded (DRE) systems. Component middleware, however, also introduces challenges for DRE system developers, such as evaluating the predictability of DRE system behavior, and choosing the right design alternatives before committing to a specific platform or platform configuration. Model-based technologies help address these issues by enabling design-time analysis, and providing the means to automate the development, deployment, configuration, and integration of component-based DRE systems. To this end, this paper applies model checking techniques to DRE design models using model transformations to verify key QoS properties of component-based DRE systems developed using Real-time CORBA. We introduce a formal semantic domain for a general class of DRE systems that enables the verification of distributed non-preemptive real-time scheduling. Our results show that model-based techniques enable design-time analysis of timed properties and can be applied to effectively predict, simulate, and verify the event-driven behavior of component-based DRE systems. This research was supported by the NSF Grants CCR-0225610 and ACI-0204028 Gabor Madl is a Ph.D. student and a graduate student researcher at the Center for Embedded Computer Systems at the University of California, Irvine. His advisor is Nikil Dutt. His research interests include the formal verification, optimization, component-based composition, and QoS management of distributed real-time embedded systems. He received his M.S. in computer science from Vanderbilt University and in computer engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Dr. Sherif Abdelwahed received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada, in 2001. During 2000–2001, he was a research scientist with the system diagnosis group at the Rockwell Scientific Company. Since 2001 he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Vanderbilt University as a Research Assistant Professor. His research interests include verification and control of distributed real-time systems, and model-based diagnosis of discrete-event and hybrid systems. Dr. Douglas C. Schmidt is a Professor of Computer Science, Associate Chair of the Computer Science and Engineering program, and a Senior Researcher in the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) all at Vanderbilt University. He has published over 300 technical papers and 6 books that cover a range of research topics, including patterns, optimization techniques, and empirical analyses of software frameworks and domain-specific modeling environments that facilitate the development of distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) middleware and applications. Dr. Schmidt has served as a Deputy Office Director and a Program Manager at DARPA, where he lead the national R&D effort on middleware for DRE systems. In addition to his academic research and government service, Dr. Schmidt has over fifteen years of experience leading the development of ACE, TAO, CIAO, and CoSMIC, which are widely used, open-source DRE middleware frameworks and model-driven tools that contain a rich set of components and domain-specific languages that implement patterns and product-line architectures for high-performance DRE systems.     

Low complexity reconfiguration for real-time data-intensive service-oriented applications

Next generation distributed real-time systems will be complex high-performance environments containing applications with a flexible structure, integrating a large number of nodes of heterogeneous nature characterized by multiple and decoupled software units scattered all over the distributed environment; they are expected to offer data-intensive capabilities through merging the processing power of large numbers of nodes. These systems will have increased dynamic behavior by suffering frequent reconfigurations or state transitions resulting, among others, from the changing nature of the processed data. Handling the dynamics of these systems in real-time is a complex problem that requires to impose some bounds to the structure of the system to really achieve timely response not only during normal operation but also in the event of reconfigurations. In this paper, we present an approach to achieve real-time reconfiguration in distributed real-time service-based systems modeled as graphs. A reconfiguration requires to search for a new schedulable/valid solution or state from a complete system graph that contains all tentative solutions; each of these solutions will have undergo a schedulability analysis to determine if it is a valid solution; if the system graph is too complex, the overall time required for the schedulability check can be exponential with respect to the size of services and service implementations; this may lead to an unbounded reconfiguration time. In this paper, we present an approach to reduce the complexity of the system graphs so that a summarizing one that contains valid solutions is analyzed and not the complete system graph. We have implemented this mechanism inside the iLAND service reconfiguration and composition components to validate the proposed concepts and ideas; the reduction of the space of solutions with the presented approach is very high, which dramatically decreases the computation time of the reconfiguration process.     

Supporting end-to-end quality of service properties in OMG data distribution service publish/subscribe middleware over wide area networks

Assuring end-to-end quality-of-service (QoS) in distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems is hard due to the heterogeneity and scale of communication networks, transient behavior, and the lack of mechanisms that holistically schedule different resources end-to-end. This paper makes two contributions to research focusing on overcoming these problems in the context of wide area network (WAN)-based DRE applications that use the OMG Data Distribution Service (DDS) QoS-enabled publish/subscribe middleware. First, it provides an analytical approach to bound the delays incurred along the critical path in a typical DDS-based publish/subscribe stream, which helps ensure predictable end-to-end delays. Second, it presents the design and evaluation of a policy-driven framework called Velox. Velox combines multi-layer, standards-based technologies—including the OMG DDS and IP DiffServ—to support end-to-end QoS in heterogeneous networks and shield applications from the details of network QoS mechanisms by specifying per-flow QoS requirements. The results of empirical tests conducted using Velox show how combining DDS with DiffServ enhances the schedulability and predictability of DRE applications, improves data delivery over heterogeneous IP networks, and provides network-level differentiated performance.     

Supporting SIP-based end-to-end Data Distribution Service QoS in WANs

Assuring end-to-end QoS in enterprise distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems is hard due to the heterogeneity and transient behavior of communication networks, the lack of integrated mechanisms that schedule communication and computing resources holistically, and the scalability limits of IP multicast in wide-area networks (WANs). This paper makes three contributions to research on overcoming these problems in the context of enterprise DRE systems that use the OMG Data Distribution Service (DDS) quality-of-service (QoS)-enabled publish/subscribe (pub/sub) middleware over WANs. First, it codifies the limitations of conventional DDS implementations deployed over WANs. Second, it describes a middleware component called Proxy DDS that bridges multiple, isolated DDS domains deployed over WANs. Third, it describes the NetQSIP framework that combines multi-layer, standards-based technologies including the OMG-DDS, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and IP DiffServ to support end-to-end QoS in a WAN and shield pub/sub applications from tedious and error-prone details of network QoS mechanisms. The results of experiments using Proxy DDS and NetQSIP show how combining DDS with SIP in DiffServ networks significantly improves dynamic resource reservation in WANs and provides effective end-to-end QoS management.     

Comparison of component frameworks for real-time embedded systems

The use of components significantly helps in development of real-time embedded systems. There have been a number of component frameworks developed for this purpose, and some of them have already became well established in this area. Even though these frameworks share the general idea of component-based development, they significantly differ in the range of supported features and maturity. This makes it relatively difficult to select the right component framework and thus poses a significant obstacle in adoption of the component-based development approach for developing real-time embedded systems. To provide guidance in choosing a component framework, or at least relevant concepts when building a custom framework, we present a survey, which illustrates distinguishing features and provides comparison of selected modern component-based frameworks for real-time embedded systems. Compared to other existing surveys, this survey focuses specifically on criteria connected with real-time and embedded systems. Further, to be practically relevant, we restrict the survey only to the frameworks that support the full development life cycle (i.e. from design till execution support). In this context, the survey illustrates the complexity of development in each framework by giving specification and code samples.     

Model driven middleware: A new paradigm for developing distributed real-time and embedded systems

Distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems have become critical in domains such as avionics (e.g., flight mission computers), telecommunications (e.g., wireless phone services), tele-medicine (e.g., robotic surgery), and defense applications (e.g., total ship computing environments). These types of system are increasingly interconnected via wireless and wireline networks to form systems of systems. A challenging requirement for these DRE systems involves supporting a diverse set of quality of service (QoS) properties, such as predictable latency/jitter, throughput guarantees, scalability, 24x7 availability, dependability, and security that must be satisfied simultaneously in real-time. Although increasing portions of DRE systems are based on QoS-enabled commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software components, the complexity of managing long lifecycles (often ∼15-30 years) remains a key challenge for DRE developers and system integrators. For example, substantial time and effort is spent retrofitting DRE applications when the underlying COTS technology infrastructure changes.This paper provides two contributions that help improve the development, validation, and integration of DRE systems throughout their lifecycles. First, we illustrate the challenges in creating and deploying QoS-enabled component middleware-based DRE applications and describe our approach to resolving these challenges based on a new software paradigm called Model Driven Middleware (MDM), which combines model-based software development techniques with QoS-enabled component middleware to address key challenges faced by developers of DRE systems — particularly composition, integration, and assured QoS for end-to-end operations. Second, we describe the structure and functionality of CoSMIC (Component Synthesis using Model Integrated Computing), which is an MDM toolsuite that addresses key DRE application and middleware lifecycle challenges, including partitioning the components to use distributed resources effectively, validating software configurations, assuring multiple simultaneous QoS properties in real-time, and safeguarding against rapidly changing technology.     

Building Large,Complex, Distributed Safety-Critical Operating Systems

Safety-critical systems typically operate in unpredictable environments. Requirements for safety and reliability are in conflict with those for real-time responsiveness. Due to unpredictable environmental needs there is no static trade-off between measures to accommodate the conflicting objectives. Instead every feature or operating system service has to be adaptive. Finally, for any design problem, there cannot be any closed-form (formal) approach taking care at the same time of (external) time constraints or deadlines, and synchronization requirements in distributed design. The reason is that these two aspects are causally independent. - In this situation we worked out a heuristic experimental, performance-driven and performance-based methodology that allows in an educated way to start with a coarse system model, with accurate logical expectations regarding its behavior. Through experiments these expectations are validated. If they are found to successfully stand the tests extended expectations and model features are generated for refining the previous design as well as its performance criteria. The refinement is done in such a way that the previous experimental configurations are extreme model cases or data profiles which both logically and experimentally are to reproduce the behavior of the previous modeling step. Thus the novel performance aspects or tendencies could then unambiguously be attributed to the influences of the refined model features. We termed this methodology Incremental Experimentation. As a general methodology it relies on a principle of comparative performance studies rather than on realistic data for narrow application ranges. The paper describes how we applied a 5-step design and refinement procedure for developing, analyzing, and evaluating our distributed operating system MELODY that exhibits novel services for supporting real-time and safety-critical applications in unpredictable environments. Experimental set-ups and theme-related findings are discussed in particular.     

Comparative analysis of two different middleware approaches for reconfiguration of distributed real-time systems

Software-based reconfiguration of distributed real-time systems is a complex problem with many sides to it ranging from system-wide concerns down to the intrinsic non-robust nature of the specific middleware layer and the used programming techniques. In a completely open distributed system, mixing reconfiguration and real-time is not possible; the set of possible target states can be very large threatening the temporal predictability of the reconfiguration process. Over the last years, middle ware solutions have appeared mainly for general purpose systems where efficient state transitions are sought for, but real-time properties are not considered. One of the few contributions to run-time software reconfiguration in distributed real-time environments has been the iLAND middleware, where the germ of a solution with high potential has been conceived and delivered in practice.¹ The key idea has been the fact that a set of bounds and limitations to the structure of systems and to their open nature needs to be imposed in order to come up with practical solutions. In this paper, the authors present the different sides of the problem of software reconfiguration from two complementary middleware perspectives comparing two strategies built inside distribution middleware. We highlight the lessons learned in the iLAND project aimed at service-based reconfiguration and compare it to our experience in the development of distributed real-time Java reconfiguration based on distributed tasks rescheduling. Authors also provide a language view of both solutions. Lastly, empirical results are shown that validate these solutions and compare them on the basis of different programming language realizations.     

Integrated Adaptive QoS Management in Middleware: A Case Study

Distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems in which application requirements and environmental conditions may not be known a priori—or which may vary at run-time—can benefit from an adaptive approach to management of quality-of-service (QoS) to meet key constraints, such as end-to-end timeliness. Moreover, coordinated management of multiple QoS capabilities across multiple layers of applications and their supporting middleware can help to achieve necessary assurances of meeting these constraints.This paper offers two contributions to the study of adaptive DRE computing systems: (1) a case study of our integration of multiple middleware QoS management technologies to manage quality and timeliness of imagery adaptively within a representative DRE avionics system and (2) empirical results and analysis of the impact of that integration on key trade-offs between timeliness and image quality in that system.This work was supported in part by AFRL contract F33615-97-D-1155/0005 (WSOA), NSF ITR CCR-0312859, Siemens, and DARPA/AFRL contracts F33615-03-C-4112, F30602-98-C-0187 and F33615-00-C-1694. Approved for public release, distribution unlimited.Christopher D. Gill is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He has published over 50 refereed technical articles in leading journals, conferences, workshops, and book series. His research focuses on distributed real-time embedded systems, with particular emphasis on adaptive mresource management, scheduling, and software design and implementation for time-and-space constrained systems. Dr. Gill has chaired numerous workshop and conference program committees, and has participated widely in review panels and standards organizations in the distributed and real-time systems areas. The research he has led has produced several freely available open-source software frameworks including the Kokyu scheduling and dispatching framework and the nORB small-footprint real-time object request broker.Jeanna Gossett joined The Boeing Company in 1999 as a member of Bold Stroke/Open Systems Architecture team. Jeanna has worked on several CRAD projects including Weapon Systems Open Architecture (WSOA) where she was responsible for incorporating quality of service and resource management software technology into the fighter aircraft real-time embedded system application. Jeanna has since joined the F/A-18 New Product Development Mission Systems team. Prior to joining The Boeing Company in 1999, she worked in the telecommunications industry as an embedded systems developer at Ericsson and Siemens AG. Jeanna received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville and is a 2005 M.B.A. candidate at Washington University in St. Louis.David Corman is a Technical Fellow at the Boeing Company, located in St. Louis, Mo. Dave is the chief scientist for the Network Centric Operations (NCO) thrust in Phantom Works (PW) and is responsible for developing the NCO technology research agenda and investment strategy. He is also the Principle Investigator (PI) for a variety of Air Force and Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) programs that are producing technologies for integrating legacy platforms into the emerging Global Information Grid and for autonomous control of unmanned systems. Since joining the former McDonnell-Douglas (now part of the Boeing Company) in 1983, Dave has worked on numerous projects ranging from embedded systems to large C4I and weapon systems. A major focus of Daves career has been on the development of C4I system simulations and in mission planning system development for aircraft and missiles. He has also served as a consultant to many weapon system and C4I programs in St. Louis, Seattle, and California. Prior to joining McDonnell-Douglas, Dave spent five years at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He was the first recipient of a Naval Research Laboratory Fellowship from the University of Maryland—College Park where he received his PhD in Electrical Engineering in 1983.Joseph Loyall is a division scientist at BBN Technologies, where he leads the Distributed Real-time Embedded (DRE) systems research thrust in the Distributed Systems Advanced Middleware Technology group. He is actively involved in developing integrated dynamic resource management capabilities and advanced software engineering using model driven architecture (MDA) approaches, and in applying adaptive behavior to operational embedded systems such as collections of unmanned and manned air vehicles. Dr. Loyall has a Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science from the University of Illinois and a B.S. in computer science from Indiana University. He can be contacted at jloyall@bbn.com.Richard E. Schantz is a principal scientist at BBN Technologies in Cambridge, Mass., where he has been a key contributor to advanced distributed computing R&D for the past 30 years. His research has been instrumental in defining and evolving the concepts underlying middleware since its emergence in the early days of the Internet. He was directly responsible for developing the first operational distributed object computing capability and transitioning it to production use. More recently, he has led research efforts toward developing and demonstrating the effectiveness of middleware support for adaptively managed Quality Of Service control, as principal investigator on a number of key DARPA projects in the areas of adaptive real-time behavior, survivability and advanced software engineering. Schantz received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, in 1974.Michael Atighetchi is a senior scientist at BBN Technologies and a senior member of the Distributed Systems Advanced Middleware Technology group. His interests include use of adaptation in survivable systems, network and operating system security, and distributed coordination. Contact him at matighet@bbn. comDouglas C. Schmidt (d.schmidt@vanderbilt.edu) is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Associate Chair of the Computer Science and Engineering program, and a Senior Researcher in the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) at Vanderbilt University. He has published over 300 technical papers and books that cover a range of research topics, including patterns, optimization techniques, and empirical analyses of software frameworks and domain-specific modeling environments that facilitate the development of distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) middleware and applications running over high-speed networks and embedded system interconnects. Dr. Schmidt has served as a Deputy Office Director and a Program Manager at DARPA, where he led the national R&D effort on middleware for DRE systems.     

Hierarchical control of multiple resources in distributed real-time and embedded systems

Real-time and embedded systems have traditionally been designed for closed environments where operating conditions, input workloads, and resource availability are known a priori, and are subject to little or no change at runtime. There is increasing demand, however, for adaptive capabilities in distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems that execute in open environments where system operational conditions, input workload, and resource availability cannot be characterized accurately a priori. A challenging problem faced by researchers and developers of such systems is devising effective adaptive resource management strategies that can meet end-to-end quality of service (QoS) requirements of applications. To address key resource management challenges of open DRE systems, this paper presents the Hierarchical Distributed Resource-management Architecture (HiDRA), which provides adaptive resource management using control techniques that adapt to workload fluctuations and resource availability for both bandwidth and processor utilization simultaneously. This paper presents three contributions to research in adaptive resource management for DRE systems. First, we describe the structure and functionality of HiDRA. Second, we present an analytical model of HiDRA that formalizes its control-theoretic behavior and presents analytical assurance of system performance. Third, we evaluate the performance of HiDRA via experiments on a representative DRE system that performs real-time distributed target tracking. Our analytical and empirical results indicate that HiDRA yields predictable, stable, and efficient system performance, even in the face of changing workload and resource availability.     

QoS中间件中实时发布/订阅服务集成评估

支持QoS的中间件技术在构造分布式实时嵌入式系统中得到了广泛应用,已成为支持实时发布/订阅服务的关键技术.评估并分析了QoS中间件中3种集成实时发布/订阅服务方法.重点研究了容器管理方式的性能,并与面向对象的实时发布/订阅服务比较.研究结果表明,容器管理方式中,CIAO中间件的等待时间稍长,有可预测性,适用于DRE系统.     

基于Multi-Agent的虚拟企业集成框架研究

本文采用多智能体技术构建虚拟企业集成框架 ，在该框架中，由agent代表各成员企业，相应地，多智能体系统(Multi-Agent System)代 表虚拟企业．其中重点提出了agent通用结构，它包括核心层、接口、通讯层三个组成部分 ：核心层由企业的原有系统构成，以保证企业的自治性；接口实现了agent核心层与通讯层 之间的信息交换；通讯层则支持agent之间的交互，实现企业间的合作．该虚拟企业集成框 架不仅支持虚拟企业像一个企业一样进行工作，而且实现了虚拟企业的可重用、可重构和可 扩充，并使企业根据需要同时参加多虚拟企业成为可能．     

Fast autonomous system traceback

Service-oriented computing (SOC) due to their distributed and lose coupled nature are very vulnerable to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. IP spoofing makes it difficult for the victim to determine the packet's origin. There is a need for a mechanism that could enable real-time traceback of the origins of the attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel protocol, fast autonomous system traceback (FAST) to traceback to the attack originating autonomous systems (AS). The multifold advantages of FAST include reconstruction requires just around 5–10 packets and reconstruction takes just a few seconds. We validate the performance through extensive simulations over the datasets obtained from traceroute.     

Towards reusable real-time objects

Large and complex real-time systems can benefit significantly from a component-based development approach where new systems are constructed by composing reusable, documented and previously tested concurrent objects. However, reusing objects which execute under real-time constraints is problematic because application specific time and synchronization constraints are often embedded in the internals of these objects. The tight coupling of functionality and real-time constraints makes objects interdependent, and as a result difficult to reuse in another system. We propose a model which facilitates separate and modular specification of real-time constraints, and show how separation of real-time constraints and functional behavior is possible. We present our ideas using the Actor model to represent untimed objects, and the Real-time Synchronizers language to express real-time and synchronization constraints. We discuss specific mechanisms by which Real-time Synchronizers can govern the interaction and execution of untimed objects. We treat our model formally, and succinctly define what effect real-time constraints have on a set of concurrent objects. We briefly discuss how a middleware scheduling and event-dispatching service can use the synchronizers to execute the system. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

一种基于OGRE图形引擎的实时分布式渲染系统

虚拟现实的实时交互得到了越来越广泛地应用,实时分布式渲染有效地解决了普通PC机渲染的时间瓶颈问题,提高了系统实时渲染性能和输出分辨率。在对分布式渲染原理研究分析的基础上,依据设计模式的思想,设计了一种基于Sort-First结构的实时分布式渲染框架和同步机制,并在实践中应用OGRE图形引擎实现了该系统。     

CesiumSpray: a Precise and Accurate Global Time Service for Large-scale Systems

In large-scale systems, such as Internet-based distributed systems, classical clock-synchronization solutions become impractical or poorly performing, due to the number of nodes and/or the distance among them. We present a global time service for world-wide systems, based on an innovative clock synchronization scheme, named CesiumSpray. The service exhibits high precision and accuracy; it is virtually indefinitely scalable; and it is fault-tolerant. It is deterministic for real-time machinery in the local area, which makes it particularly well-suited for, though not limited to, large-scale real-time systems. The main features of our clock synchronization scheme can be summarized as follows: hybrid external/internal synchronization protocol improves effectiveness of synchronization; heterogeneous failure semantics for clocks and processors improves previous lower bounds on processors; two-level hierarchy improves scalability. The root of the hierarchy is the GPS satellite constellation, which sprays its reference time over a set of nodes provided with GPS receivers, one per local network. The second level of the hierarchy performs internal synchronization, further spraying the external time inside the local network.     

CCMPerf: A Benchmarking Tool for CORBA Component Model Implementations

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) middleware is now widely used to develop distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems. DRE systems are themselves increasingly combined to form systems of systems that have diverse quality of service (QoS) requirements. Earlier generations of COTS middleware, such as Object Request Brokers (ORBs) based on the CORBA 2.x standard, did not facilitate the separation of QoS policies from application functionality, which made it hard to configure and validate complex DRE applications. The new generation of component middleware, such as the CORBA Component Model (CCM) based on the CORBA 3.0 standard, addresses the limitations of earlier generation middleware by establishing standards for implementing, packaging, assembling, and deploying component implementations.There has been little systematic empirical study of the performance characteristics of component middleware implementations in the context of DRE systems. This paper therefore provides four contributions to the study of CCM for DRE systems. First, we describe the challenges involved in benchmarking different CCM implementations. Second, we describe key criteria for comparing different CCM implementations using key black-box and white-box metrics. Third, we describe the design of our CCMPerf benchmarking suite to illustrate test categories that evaluate aspects of CCM implementation to determine their suitability for the DRE domain. Fourth, we use CCMPerf to benchmark CIAO implementation of CCM and analyze the results. These results show that the CIAO implementation based on the more sophisticated CORBA 3.0 standard has comparable DRE performance to that of the TAO implementation based on the earlier CORBA 2.x standard.Arvind S. Krishna is a PhD student in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Vanderbilt University and a member of the Institute for Software Integrated Systems. He received his MA in management from the Brila Institute for Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, India and his MS in computer science from University of California, Irvine. His research interests include patterns, real-time Java technologies for Real-Time Corba, model-integrated QA techniques, and tools for partial evaluation and specialization of middleware. He is a student member of the IEEE and ACM. Contact him at the Inst. for Software Integrated Systems, 2015 Terrace Pl., Nashville, TN 37203.Balachandran Natarajan is a senior staff engineer at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems and a PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science at Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on applying patterns, optimization principles, and frameworks to build high-performance, dependable, and real-time distributed systems. He received his MS in computer science from Washington University. Contact him at the Inst. for Software Integrated Systems, 2015 Terrace Pl., Nashville, TN 37203.Aniruddha Gokhale is an assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Vanderbilt University and a senior research scientist at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems. His research focuses on real-time component middleware optimizations, distributed systems and networks, model-driven software synthesis applied to component middleware-based distributed systems, and distributed resource management. He received his PhD in computer science from Washington University. Contact him at the Inst. for Software Integrated Systems, 2015 Terrace Pl., Nashville, TN 37203.Douglas C. Schmidt is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Vanderbilt University and a senior research scientist at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems. His research interests include patterns, optimization techniques, and empirical analyses of software frameworks and domain-specific modeling environments that facilitate the development of distributed real-time and embedded middleware and applications running over high-speed networks and embedded system interconnects. He received his PhD in information and computer science at the University of California, Irvine. Contact him at the Inst. for Software Integrated Systems, 2015 Terrace Pl., Nashville, TN 37203.Nanbor Wang is a Research Scientist in the Distributed Technologies Group at the Tech-X Corporation in Boulder, Colorado. He received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. While working for his degree, he also worked as a Research Associate in the Center of Distributed Object Computing in the Department of Computer Science where he conducted research on design, implementation and analysis of object-oriented and component-based techniques for development of distributed systems and management of extra-functional concerns. Dr. Wangs work currently focuses on developing and applying middleware techniques, such as CORBA and Grid Computing, for enabling distributed and parallel scientific applications, such as, distributed data analysis, remote visualization and collaboration, and, work-flow management for large-scale scientific applications.Gautam H. Thaker was born in Amdavad, India, in 1955. He holds a BSEE (75) and MSEE (77) from Clemson University, Clemson, SC. He spent the 85-86 academic year at M.I.T. as a visiting researcher. His research interests include analysis, design, construction and validation of real-time, command and control systems. In particular he has focused on interactions between operating systems, networking protocols, and middleware technologies.