Data interfaces as support for module migration

Module migration is the relocation of a running process from one host to another such that the move is transparent to the modules that interact with it. The author suggests that data interfaces can simplify run-time support for module migration and facilitate writing migratable modules. Data interfaces make available to the run-time system access to a module's state information. This simplifies the module migration problem, since state extraction mechanisms are not required. The trick is to provide a clean data interface that captures only the essential I/O behavior of a module and at the same time exposes enough state information so that the module can be relocated without state extraction.<
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