LIM: a layered interconnection model for improving component reuse

As information technologies evolve, computing environments become more distributed, cooperated, and heterogeneous. More and more software applications written in different programming languages running on different platforms with different operating systems are required to communicate with one another over different computer networks in a collaborative manner. Conflicts resulting from having heterogeneous cooperated distributed computing environments require strategies for software interoperability. In this paper, we present a 4-layered interconnection model to support the development of heterogeneous distributed coordinated reusable components. Each layer will have a collection of well-defined functions that access the layer below it by using its interface. The interconnection model decouples the applications and the underlying middleware implementations by isolating computation, communication, and coordination promotes reuse, improves comprehension, and eases maintenance due to software evolution.