A Web-oriented architectural aspect for the emerging computational tapestry

An emerging tapestry of computations will soon integrate systems around the globe. It will evolve without central control. Its complexity will be vast. We need new ideas, tools and methods to help map, understand and manage this tapestry. We contribute a light-weight architectural aspect that designers can use without compromising their own architectural preferences. Widespread use could help. The idea is for objects to provide Web-based interfaces to object-specific meta-data, state, and monitoring and control services. We discuss applications, implementation, scalability, performance, tradeoffs, and related work.