A workbench for predicting the performances of distributed object architectures

The development of a distributed information system (DIS) can lead to critical bottlenecks because of the underlying architecture, which is becoming more and more complex. Todays applications are both object-oriented and based on a new type of three-tiered client/server architecture. In this context, the capabilities of a DIS can be drastically reduced if the performance of the system is not sufficient. Recognizing these trends, industry and research are defining standards and technologies for communicating between components of a DIS and for database access mechanisms. The emerging candidates for these middleware technologies include the OMGs CORBA specification and Microsoft´s proprietary solution known as DCOM. A key problem with such complex architectures is the performance issue. This paper presents a simulation-based workbench for predicting the performance of applications relying on these architectures. The proposed tool is based on providing end users with mechanisms to specify the essential characteristics of the application he/she is conceiving and the ability to match the software components with the operational environment (hardware and operating system)