Middleware Support for Real-time Tasks on Distributed and Multicore Platforms Abstract of the Dissertation Middleware Support for Real-time Tasks on Distributed and Multicore Platforms

While traditional real-time middleware such as Real-Time CORBA have shown promise as distributed software platforms for systems with time constraints, existing middleware systems lack (1) schedulability analysis and run-time enforcement mechanisms needed to give online real-time guarantees for aperiodic tasks, (2) flexible configuration mechanisms needed to manage end-to-end timing easily for a wide range of dfferent distributed real-time systems with both periodic and aperiodic tasks, and (3) support for scheduling soft real-time tasks on multicore platforms while guaranteeing their time constraints will be satisfied. To address the limitations of current generation real-time middleware, this dissertation makes three major contributions to the state of the art in real-time middleware: we have developed (1) the first instantiation of an integrated scheduling framework supporting both periodic and aperiodic tasks (on TAO, a widely used Real-Time CORBA middleware); (2) the first configurable component middleware services for admission control and load balancing of periodic and aperiodic tasks in distributed real-time systems (on CIAO, a Component-Integrated Real-Time middleware); and (3) MC-ORB, the first real-time object request broker (ORB) designed to exploit the features of multicore platforms, with admission control and task allocation services that can provide schedulability guarantees for soft real-time tasks on multicore platforms. Type of Report: PhD Dissertation Department of Computer Science & Engineering Washington University in St. Louis Campus Box 1045 St. Louis, MO 63130 ph: (314) 935-6160