A time-triggered data distribution service for FTT-CORBA

FTT-CORBA is a middleware architecture aimed at synchronizing the task activations of a distributed system according to a plan that may be changed at runtime. In this architecture tasks are wrapped within CORBA methods that are activated by a central node, the Orchestrator, over a LAN. Previous versions of FTT-CORBA focused on CPU-bound applications in which the communication time was neglectable. However, in some cases, this assumption is not valid. This work presents an add-on service, integrated within the FTT-CORBA middleware, aimed at minimizing the interference among task activation and data distribution messages. By using this new service the Orchestrator will be capable of controlling the transmission of data distribution packages from the distributed nodes by dynamically allocating them in specific time slots.