Interceptors for Java Remote Method Invocation

A software interceptor is a procedure or object that interposes itself between an invoking client and an invoked server software entity. Procedural interceptors can redirect procedure invocations to alternative procedures that are selected dynamically at run time. Procedural interceptors are useful for program profiling, tracing, dynamic delegation of operation implementation, and interactive debugging. Distributed interceptors for remote procedure calls support additional capabilities such as protocol bridges, server thread schedulers, fault tolerant replication, security audits and encryption, and performance enhancements such as compression and caching. CORBA, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, comes with standard portable interceptors, but interceptors are missing from Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI). Java reflection assists adding custom interceptors to RMI by enabling a generator to create interceptor classes automatically. These classes interpose on both the client and server sides of RMI invocations, supporting interceptor-based extensions that are transparent to client code.