Object-oriented groups for distributed computation development

The paper presents an object group approach for the development of distributed computation by combining a distributed process group with the powerful concepts of object oriented design. The novelty of this approach lies in its provision of a methodology for construction of application object groups, membership management and group message passing. The mechanisms of grouping user objects enable application objects to communicate transparently over a network. Communication and remote method invocation details implemented by the underlying group multicast protocol are hidden from users. This makes the objects completely responsible for their modification, protection, execution and communication and relieves application designers from the concern of designing distributed object communication and reliability. Hierarchy of object group communication protocols are described.