An architectural application framework for evolving distributed systems

In this paper, we present an object-oriented application framework to support the development of evolving distributed systems. The framework combines concepts of the object-oriented paradigm with those of architectural design. The result is a framework which supports extensible and reusable configurations of distributed components. The framework addresses the problem of evolution by allowing the addition, replacement and extension of components of a configuration, Evolution is also possible at run time, where a configuration can change dynamically depending on a particular event. The paper outlines the fundamental aspects of our framework and presents a case study, which illustrates its application. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.