Design and evaluation of the distributed software component framework for distributed communication architectures

We present our experiences with the DSC (Distributed Software Component) framework and development environment. The DSC framework supports component oriented distributed communication architecture such as TINA (Telecommunications Information Network Architecture). Within the component development environment, components can be developed and evaluated. Software components are self-contained packages of code that can be dynamically linked into a program. Operational interfaces cater for the external functionality of the component. The DSC can support both dynamic and static operational interfaces. Also, there can exist multiple instances of the same operational interface. Furthermore, components can be grouped together to form compound components. Through a common control and configuration interface the components can be configured with regard to events, properties, operational interfaces life cycle, and composition. We apply this framework to a TINA based service and network architecture called MESH (Multimedia Services an the Electronic Super Highway). An example is provided; a shared white board service is created using the DSC framework. The shared white board service can be used in multimedia conferencing applications.