Tracing system-level communication in distributed systems

Traditional tracing mechanisms were usually developed for use in a single-computer environment. Moreover, they are bound to a speci c programming language. Today's highly distributed and heterogeneous computing environments require new tracing methodologies. The paper addresses this problem by reviewing ways how the middleware might and should support tracing. In particular, CORBA meta-objects that can be applied for tracing, are studied. One of them, namely the interceptor concept is presented in more depth, followed by a detailed description of an interceptor-based tracing architecture for CORBA applications. Implementation details and evaluation experience is given.