SYNCHRONIZATION OF APPLICATION INSTANCES BASED ON SWELLRT’S COLLABORATIVE OBJECTS
Keywords:
Synchronization of application instances, synchronization protocol, synchronous or asynchronous monitoring and support, low-speed Internet connection, intelligent system, learning Technologies for Education systems and intelligent environment, SERPOLET system, SwellRT, Collaborative objects, RMI, Socket.Abstract
We propose to define a protocol which manages the synchronization of two instances of the same application, through a communication network. We are aiming for something simpler: to synchronize instances of the same application on different computers, especially in a context of low-speed Internet connection, with applications for example in the fields of distance education or remote assistance. In this article, we describe the situation using an extended automata asynchronous composition model. Our study is carried out within the framework of a general synchronizable application. In the particular context of this study, the envisaged application corresponds to a SERPOLET environment integrating communication modules, for the synchronous and / or asynchronous followup or support of a learner (respectively a group of learners) by his tutor (respectively their tutor). Our early implementations of the synchronization mechanism used socket and RMI communications in Java. In this new implementation, which is the subject of this study, we use the natural collaborative possibilities of SwellRT to optimize the communication modules between application instances
