ODP-Trader

In an open distributed system, it is desirable to have dynamic selection of required services. Trading is a common ODP function that enables client (service consumers) to choose appropriate servers (service providers) at run time so that clients can be configured into an ODP system without prior knowledge of the server objects. An ODP-trader is an object that provides such a trading function. Using the ODP viewpoints, we show how traders provide an advertising and matchmaking service for objects to enable the dynamic selection of appropriate servers. We also show that traders can be federated to provide a transparent method of interworking while maintaining the autonomy and the heterogeneity of distributed component traders. Keyword Codes : C.2.4, H.3.3