MSc Course in Advanced Distributed Systems Session 1.2b : Publish/Subscribe Communication Service

1. MSc Course in Advanced Distributed SystemsSession 1.2b : Publish/Subscribe Communication Service

2. Session 1.2b :Publish/Subscribe Communication Service • Overview of Lecture • Motivation for publish/subscribe communication service • What is publish/subscribe service? • key functions and issues associated with publish/subscribe service • Classifications of publish/subscribe service and their differences • Suitability of publish/subscribe service for different environments • Research at Lancaster • Additional reading • http://www.cs.tcd.ie/publications/tech-reports/reports.02/TCD-CS-2002-14.pdf • Advanced CORBA programming with C++, M.Henning, S. Vinoski . Chapter 20

3. Motivation for publish/subscribe communication model • Limitations of client/server communication model, specially for WAN and mobile environments • Client/server communication model are based on synchronous request invocations • Many distributed applications find synchronous request invocation too restrictive • Wide area networks (WAN) and mobile computing environment requires more flexible and de-coupled communication style • Large scale distributed systems involve thousands of entities potentially distributed in WAN and /or wireless settings • Increasing number of distributed applications require anonymous and asynchronous communication style

4. Synchronous request invocations request Server Client Operation() response -Remote method invocations result in synchronous execution of an operation provided by an object -Both client( requestor) and server ( provider) must be present and running -Client blocks until operation returns -Client are aware of destinations of request, since they hold object references to target object -Only supports uni-cast communication( one to one) E.g. Standard CORBA method invocations, Microsoft DCOM, Java Remote method invocations (RMI)

5. What is publish/subscribe communication model ? • P/S model represents an emerging paradigm for de-coupled and asynchronous connections between application components • The publish/subscribe system contain information providers, which publish events to the information consumers. The Consumers subscribe to particular categories of event • The P/S service ensures the timely delivery of published events to all interested subscribers • P/S service is also known as event service

6. Publish/Subscribe Middleware Service Want champions league football news REAL MADRID 4-2 MARSEILLE Subscribe Publish Notify Notification Publication Want weather news for Lancaster Publish/Subscribe Service Weather Lancaster : sunny intervalsmin 11°C max 20°C Subscription Want Traffic update for junction A6 Publisher Subscriber

7. Role of each participant • Publishers role : Publishers generate event data and publishes them • Subscribers role : Subscribers submit their subscriptions and process the events received • P/S service: It’s the mediator/broker that routes events from publishers to interested subscribers

8. Key attributes of P/S communication model • The publishing entities and subscribing entities are anonymous • The publishing entities and subscribing entities are highly de-coupled • Asynchronous communication model • The number of publishing and subscribing entities can dynamically change without affecting the entire system

9. Key functions implemented by P/Smiddleware service • Event filtering (event selection)- The process which selects the set of subscribers that have shown interest in a given event • Event routing (event delivery) – The process of routing the published events from the publisher to all interested subscribers

10. Event filtering Subject based vs. Content based(1) • Subject based: • Generally also known as topic based, group based or channel based event filtering. • Here each event is published to one of these channels by its publisher • A subscriber subscribes to a particular channel and will receive all events published to the subscribed channel. • Simple process for matching an event to subscriptions

11. Event filtering Subject based vs. Content based(2) • Content based: • More flexibility and power to subscribers, by allowing to express as an arbitrary query over the contents of the event. • E.g. Notify me of all stock quotes of IBM from New York stock exchange if the price is greater than 150 • Added complexity in matching an event to subscriptions

12. Event routing • The basic P/S system consists of many event publishers, an event broker (or mediator) and many subscribers. • An event publisher generates an event in response to some change it monitors • The events are published to an event broker which matches events against all subscriptions forwarded by subscribers in the system. • Event broker system could have either a single event broker or multiple distributed event brokers coordinating among themselves

13. Event routing C1,C2,C3 are subscriptions of S1,S2,S3 respectively P C1 S1 Event broker system P S2 C2 P C3 S3 P OR Single broker P- Event publisher S – Event subscriber Cluster of cooperating brokers

14. Basic elements of P/S model • Event data model • Structure • Types • Subscription model • Filter language • Scope (subject, content ,context) • General challenge - Expressiveness vs. scalability

15. Classification of publish/subscribe systems(1) • Peer to Peer /Listener model • Subscribers register at specific named publishing entities • Publishing entities deliver events to specific named subscribing entities directly • Requires subscribing entities to have some references of publishing entities • Requires publishing entities to have references of all subscribers it intends to notify about events • E.g. Java distributed event service, JMS, Used in JINI

16. Classification of publish/subscribe systems(2) • Broker ( Mediator) model • Subscribers register their subscriptions with a common event mediator • Publishers forwards events to the common event mediator • Mediator takes care of receiving events from publishers and delivering them to all interested subscribers • Mediators can be single mediator or multiple mediators • Multiple mediators co-operate among themselves to achieve the common brokering facility provided to publishers and subscribers. • E.g. CORBA Event service, JMS, CORBA Notification service, SIENA, JEDI etc

17. Classification of publish/subscribe systems(3) • Implicit model • Subscribing entities subscribe( or register) to particular event types rather than with a mediator or publishing entity • Publishing entities generate event of some type which are delivered to the subscribed entities • Publishers or subscribers need not hold explicit references to mediators or pub/sub entities. • E.g. STEAM, Cambridge event model (CEM)

18. Sampling of applications • Highly suited for mobile applications, ubiquitous computing and distributed embedded systems • Examples include • Gaming • Workflow • Auctioning • Intrusion detection • Intelligent office • News distribution • File sharing • Resource discovery • Sensor grids

19. Suitability of publish/subscribe middleware • Highly suited for mobile computing • Highly suited for ubiquitous computing and distributed embedded systems • Suited to build distributed applications consisting a large number of entities • Robust – Failure of publishers or subscribers does not bring down the entire system • Many variations to suit different environments • LAN – CORBA Event service, Java distributed event service ,Real time CORBA event service • WAN – SIENA, JEDI etc Still require significant research advances • Mobile environments – JEDI, STEAM Still require significant research advances http://www.cs.colorado.edu/serl/dot/siena.html http://www.research.ibm.com/gryphon/

20. Early experience at Lancaster-CORTEX project • Publish/subscribe middleware suited for mobile environment • Uses implicit model • No reliance on fixed event brokers or system wide services • Supports subject, content, context based event filtering • XML based event data model • Utilised in two scenarios: • Smart room ( Interactive innovations lab) • Cooperating cars with traffic light http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/mpg/projects/cortex/

21. Cooperating Cars Application Satellites Car publishes on Carcontrol channel TL publishes on Carcontrol channel Car subscribes to: CarControlChannel & Receives events from other cars, Traffic lights IEEE 802.11b(ad-hoc) ---Event Channel---CarControlChannel Car A Car B

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23. Analysis • The existing mature publish/subscribe solution for LAN ( E.g. CORBA Event service, Java event service ) have some limitations • New standards are advancing such as CORBA Notification service, JMS to address some of the limitations for LAN • Research on P/S required for WAN and specially for mobile environments still not mature

24. Expected Learning Outcomes • To understand the benefits provided by publish/subscribe communication model • To be able to compare publish/subscribe with other communication models • To understand the core functions and key features related to publish/subscribe • To understand the various classifications of publish/subscribe models and their advantages/disadvantages