Deadlock-free software architectures for COM/DCOM Applications

Many software projects are based on the integration of independently designed software components that are acquired on the market rather than developed within the project itself. Sometimes interoperability and composition mechanisms provided by component based integration frameworks cannot solve the problem of binary component integration in an automatic way. In this paper we present a technique to allow connectors synthesis for deadlock-free component based architectures [IEEE Proceedings of the 16th ASE, 2001] in the context of COM/DCOM applications. This work also provides guidelines to implement an automatic tool that derives the implementation of routing deadlock-free policies within the connector from the dynamic behavior specification of the COM components. Deadlock is then prevented by inserting the synthesized connector within the system via COM composition mechanisms while letting the system COM servers unmodified. We present a successful application of this technique on the (COM version of the) problem known as ‘‘The dining philosophers’’.