A uniform approach to configuration and communication in distributed systems

This paper describes the design and implementation of extensions to the Regis distributed programming platform which add protocol stacks to communication endpoints. Although the initial goal was to extend Regis to support multiple transport protocols, groupcast and multimedia communication, the dynamic nature of the protocol framework allowed new approaches to the design of communication protocol software. Transient protocol layers provide support for binding establishment and connection management in a manner which is largely transparent to the user of the endpoint. The paper describes this approach through examples and shows how it leads to greater efficiency and a greater degree of code reuse.