Observation of a global object space on a distributed memory machine

Describes a powerful environment for the development and execution of object-oriented parallel applications on a multicomputer or a cluster of workstations. The XENOOPS environment (eXecution ENvironments for Object Oriented Parallel Software) implements a global object space and offers support for dynamic load balancing and fault tolerance. Workload redistribution at run-time is realised by applying object migration and granularity control. Fault tolerance is realised by object replication. An advanced debugging tool is presented. This tool adds support for the observation of interacting objects in a transparent, dynamic and selective way by extending the object invocation subsystem of the execution environment. A meta-object can be created for every object to intercept the invocations on that particular object and to observe the state changes. Results from an advanced parallel application in the area of partial differential equations illustrate the applicability of our observation software.<>