Clustering: composition for active object systems

A model of object composition which facilitates the automation of the partitioning of an object-oriented application into groups of objects called clusters is presented. Object clusters form the unit of distribution, representing both locality and concurrency within an application. Clusters reflect the "single threadedness" or sequentiality of the objects within them. The larger granularity of object clusters permits them to be supported efficiently at run time. A method of cluster formation for class based object oriented programming languages is introduced and preliminary results of a prototype implementation are described.<>