A performance broker for CORBA

CORBA applications can transparently use service instances running on the client's machine, on the local-area network, or across the Internet. Standard CORBA services help the application locate service instances, but do not provide a mechanism to identify service instances that will give good performance. The PerformanceBroker executes performance test suites on application service instances and selects service instances that will give superior application performance. The Broker weights performance test results according to client-specified criteria to choose the service instances that will provide the best application performance and allocates those service instances to clients. Tests with a distributed ray tracing application show that service instances chosen by the PerformanceBroker give better performance than service instances chosen by round-robin or random selection in local-area network and Internet environments.