THE DISCRETE-TIME TOOLBUS - A SOFTWARE COORDINATION ARCHITECTURE

The notion of ''time'' plays an important role when coordinating large , heterogeneous, distributed software systems. We present a generic co ordination architecture that supports relative and absolute, discrete time. First, we briefly sketch the TOOLBUS coordination architecture. Next, we give a minor and a major example of its use: a calculator and a distributed auction. Finally, we sketch a framework for describing the operational behavior of the TOOLBUS, and conclude with a survey of implementation aspects and applications. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B. V. All rights reserved.