Centralised access over TCP/IP based on real-time Java VM

The paper deals with the attempt to guarantee real-time services over TCP/IP. The scenario taken into consideration is a distributed computing environment where producer and consumer processes feature real time constraints and the communication between them is realised by a LAN based on TCP/IP protocols. The lack of determinism in the communication of this suite of protocols is the reason of the proposal of a real time access protocol. This protocol is implemented by a Java-based middleware between TCP/IP and user's real time applications. In order to introduce more determinism in the execution of the Java code, the PERC Real-Time Java Virtual Machine has been used. The paper focuses on the description of the centralised access protocol and its performance evaluation using the real-time PERC Virtual Machine.