Object Web (Java/CORBA) based RTI to support Metacomputing M&S

                 G. C. Fox, W. Furmanski+ and H. T. Ozdemir

 Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, Syracuse University, Syracuse NY

          Abstract submitted for the First Annual ITEA Workshop on
       High Performance Computing in Support for Test and Evaluation,
                       July 13-16 1998, Aberdeen MD.

Simulation environments for T&E require integration of several M&S software
modules, including simulators for tested objects, their parts, and suitable
synthetic environments they operate in and interact with. Such integration
of diverse simulation paradigms will be soon most conveniently performed
within the new High Level Architecture (HLA) promoted by DMSO to enforce
DoD-wide simulation interoperability. HLA includes the object models
specified by the Object Model Template (OMT) and the Run-Time Infrastructure
(RTI), acting as a software bus that supports interaction between HLA
objects (federates) within applications (federations).

In parallel with these developments in the DoD M&S, new Web/Commodity
standards are emerging or consolidating in the area of distributed objects
and componentware such as CORBA, Java/RTI and DCOM. Current HLA is a custom
distributed object model but DMSO's longer range plan includes transferring
HLA to industry as CORBA Facility for Modeling and Simulation. Anticipating
these developments, we are currently building within our HPCMP FMS PET
activities at NPAC an Object Web based RTI prototype which builds on top of
our new JWORB (Java Web Object Request Broker) middleware/integration
technology under development.

JWORB is a multi-protocol Java network server, currently integrating HTTP
(Web) and IIOP (CORBA) and hence acting both as a Web server and a CORBA
broker. Such server architecture enforces software economy and allows us to
efficiently prototype new interactive Web standards such as XML, DOM or RDF
in terms of a solid software engineering services and facilities of CORBA.

We are now testing this concept and extending JWORB functionality by
building RTI support as a JWORB service. Such Object Web RTI uses Common
Object Services of CORBA such as Naming, Event, Relationship, Notification
etc. to build the core RTI objects such as RTIAmbassador,
FederateAmbassador, RTIExecutive and FederationExecutive, using the Web/Java
implementation framework.

Due to the Web/CORBA integration enabled by JWORB, we will be able to
inherit the growing arsenal of the Web/Commodity front-end technologies such
as Java2D, Java3D or VRML. We are also working on CORBA/COM bridge support
in JWORB which will enable interfaces to Microsoft graphics and multimedia
technologies such as DirectX. Such a broad spectrum of commodity
visualization techniques, integrated with the simulation engine/bus of RTI
is of particular relevance for the T&E simulations that require a variety of
front-end technologies to support object authoring, scenario development,
runtime monitors and the analysis of the test databases.

Other JWORB related activites at NPAC include: a) new version of WebFlow, a
visual dataflow authoring environment for 3-tier Web/Commodity based
distributed computing, which uses the JWORB based middleware; and b) JWORB
interface/wrappers for Globus Metacomputing Toolkit by Argonne, used in
several HPC Labs. Hence, our JWORB based RTI will offer a natural
integration platform for bringing together the HLA and HPC domains in
service for advanced T&E applications such as Virtual Prototyping or
Simulation Based Acquisition.

This paper will present the overview of NPAC JWORB activities, followed by
the description of the early prototype of JWORB based RTI and the associated
demos.

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+ Contact information: Wojtek Furmanski, 201 Physics Bldg., Syracuse
University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1130, voice (315) 443-3891, fax (315)
449-9103, email: furm@npac.syr.edu