Due to its platform‐independent execution model, its support for networking, multithreading and mobile code, Java has given hope that easy Internet‐wide high‐performance network computing was at hand. Numerous attempts have then been made at providing a framework for the development of such metacomputing applications. Unfortunately, none of them addresses seamless sequential, multithreaded and distributed computing, i.e. the execution of the same application on a multiprocessor shared‐memory machine as well as on a network of workstations, or on any hierarchical combination of both. In this paper we first identify four requirements for the development of such metacomputing frameworks. We then introduce Java// (pronounced Java Parallel), a 100% Java library that provides transparent remote objects as well as asynchronous two‐way calls, high reuse potential and high‐level synchronization mechanisms. We also present the metaobject protocol (MOP) Java// is built on and describe a distributed collaborative raytracing test application built using Java//. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Abstract

Due to its platform-independent execution model, its support for networking, multithreading and mobile code, Java has given hope that easy Internet-wide high-performance network computing was at hand. Numerous attempts have then been made at providing a framework for the development of such metacomputing applications. Unfortunately, none of them addresses seamless sequential, multithreaded and distributed computing, i.e. the execution of the same application on a multiprocessor shared-memory machine as well as on a network of workstations, or on any hierarchical combination of both. In this paper we first identify four requirements for the development of such metacomputing frameworks. We then introduce Java// (pronounced Java Parallel), a 100% Java library that provides transparent remote objects as well as asynchronous two-way calls, high reuse potential and high-level synchronization mechanisms. We also present the metaobject protocol (MOP) Java// is built on and describe a distributed collaborative raytracing test application built using Java//.