[This document is also available at the following URL: http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html. All software and documentation is available via both anonymous ftp and the World Wide Web.] THE ADAPTIVE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT (ACE) An Object-Oriented Network Programming Toolkit ---------------------------------------- Overview of ACE The ADAPTIVE Communication Environment (ACE) is an object-oriented (OO) toolkit that implements fundamental design patterns for communication software. ACE provides a rich set of reusable C++ wrappers and frameworks that perform common communication software tasks across a range of OS platforms, including Win32 (i.e., WinNT 3.5.x and 4.x and Win95), most versions of UNIX (e.g., SunOS 4.x, Solaris 2.x, SGI IRIX 5.x and 6.x, HP-UX 9.x and 10.x, OSF/1 a.k.a. DEC UNIX, AIX 4.x, Linux, SCO, UnixWare, and FreeBSD), VxWorks, Chorus, and MVS OpenEdition. A single source tree is used for all these platforms and porting ACE to other platforms is relatively easy. The communication software components provided by ACE include event demultiplexing and event handler dispatching, service initialization, interprocess communication, shared memory management, message routing, dynamic (re)configuration of distributed services, multi-threading, and concurrency control. There are both C++ and Java versions of ACE available. ACE is targeted for developers of high-performance and real-time communication services and applications on UNIX, POSIX, and Win32 platforms. ACE simplifies the development of OO network applications and services that utilize interprocess communication, event demultiplexing, explicit dynamic linking, and concurrency. ACE automates system configuration and reconfiguration by dynamically linking services into applications at run-time and executing these services in one or more processes or threads. ACE is currently used in commercial projects and products by dozens of companies including Ericsson, Bellcore, Siemens, Motorola, Kodak, Boeing, Lucent, DEC, Lockheed Martin, and SAIC. Commercial support for ACE is available at http://www.riverace.com. ---------------------------------------- C++ Wrappers for OS Interfaces The lower-level portions of ACE provide a set of portable and type-secure C++ wrappers that encapsulate the following C language OS interfaces: . IPC mechanisms -- e.g., Internet- and UNIX-domain sockets, TLI, Named Pipes (for UNIX and Win32) and STREAM pipes; . Event demultiplexing -- e.g., select(), poll(), and Win32 WaitForMultipleObjects and I/O completion ports; . Multi-threading and synchronization -- e.g., Solaris threads, POSIX Pthreads, and Win32 threads; . Explicit dynamic linking -- e.g., dlopen/dlsym on UNIX and LoadLibrary/GetProc on Win32; . Memory-mapped files and shared memory management -- e.g., BSD mmap(), SYSV shared memory, and Win32 shared memory; . System V IPC -- e.g., shared memory, semaphores, message queues. The OS Adaptation Layer shields the upper levels of ACE from platform dependencies associated with the underlying OS interfaces. ---------------------------------------- Frameworks and Class Categories ACE also contains a higher-level network programming framework that integrates and enhances the lower-level C++ wrappers. This framework supports the dynamic configuration of concurrent distributed services into applications. The framework portion of ACE contains the following class categories: . The Reactor -- Supports both Reactive and Proactive I/O; . The Service Configurator -- Support dynamic (re)configuration of objects; . The ADAPTIVE Service Executive -- A user-level implementation of System V STREAMS, that supports modular integration of hierarchically-related communicaion services; . Concurrency -- Various types of higher-level concurrency control and synchronization patterns (such as Polymorphic Futures and Active Objects); . Shared Malloc -- Components for managing dynamically allocation of shared and local memory; . CORBA integration -- Integrates ACE with CORBA implementations (such as single-threaded and multi-threaded Orbix and Visibroker for C++). ---------------------------------------- Distributed Services and Components Finally, ACE provides a standard library of distributed services that are packaged as components. These service components play two roles in ACE: 1. They provide reusable components for common distributed system tasks such as logging, naming, locking, and time synchronization. 2. They illustrate how to utilize ACE features such as the Reactor, Service Configurator, Service Initialization, Concurrency, and IPC components. ACE is currently being used in many commercial products including the Bellcore Q.port ATM signaling software product, the Ericsson EOS family of telecom switch monitoring applications, the Motorola Iridium global mobile communications system, and enterprise-wide electronic medical imaging systems for Kodak Health Imaging Systems and Siemens medical engineering. ---------------------------------------- OBTAINING ACE The current ACE release is provided as a tar file that is around 1.8 Meg compressed using GNU gzip. ACE may be obtained electronically from http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE-obtain.html. This release contains the source code, test drivers, and example applications for C++ wrapper libraries and the higher-level ACE network programming framework developed as part of the ADAPTIVE project at the University of California, Irvine and at Washington University, St. Louis. ---------------------------------------- ACE DOCUMENTATION AND TUTORIALS Many of the C++ wrappers and higher-level components have been described in issues of the C++ Report, as well as in proceedings of many journals, conferences, and workshops. A collection of white papers and tutorial handouts are included at ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/languages/c++/ACE/ACE-documentation. This directory contains postscript versions of various papers that describe different aspects of ACE. I update these papers periodically to reflect changes to the ACE architecture. Therefore, you might want to check the date on the files to make sure that you have read the most recent versions of these papers. This material is also available available via the WWW at URL: http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html ---------------------------------------- BUILDING AND INSTALLING ACE Please refer to the http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE-INSTALL.html file for information on how to build and test the ACE wrappers. The BIBLIOGRAPHY file contains information on where to obtain articles that describe the ACE wrappers and the ADAPTIVE system in more detail. The current release has been tested extensively, but if you find any bugs, please report them to me. ACE MAILING LIST A mailing list is available for discussing bug fixes, enhancements, and porting issues regarding ACE. Please send mail to me at the ace-users-request@cs.wustl.edu if you'd like to join the mailing list. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ACE has been deeply influenced and improved by the following members of my research group at Washington University: Darrell Brunsch Chris Cleeland Aniruddha Gokhale Tim Harrison James Hu Prashant Jain David Levine Carlos O'Ryan Irfan Pyarali Nanbor Wang I would also like to thank all the following people who have also contributed to ACE over the years: Paul Stephenson Olaf Kruger Ed Brown Lee Baker Alex Ranous Mark Patton Steffen Winther Sorensen for Troy Warner Stacy Mahlon Charles Eads Mark Frutig Todd Hoff George Brad Needham Leslee Xu Detlef Becker Bruce Worden Chris Tarr Bill Sears Greg Lavendar Steve Warwick Mats Sundvall Andreas Ueltschi Nigel Hooke Medhi Tabatabai Stuart Powell Bin Mu Andrew McGowan Ken Konecki John P. Hearn Giang Hoang Nguyen Carlos Garcia Braschi Jam Hamidi Eric Vaughan Karl-Heinz Dorn Steve Ritter Chandra Venkatapathy Matt Stevens Bob Vistica David Trumble John Morey George Reynolds Hans Rohnert Alex V. Maclinovsky Todd Blanchard Rob Clairmont Christian Millour Neil Cohen Dieter Quehl Reginald S. Perry James Morris Mark Seaborn Phil Brooks E. Jason Scheck Daniel Proulx Bill Tang John Huchinson Jack Erickson Byron Walton Bill Lear Mark Zusman Aurelio Nocerino Walt Akers Greg Baker Alexandre Karev Pramod Kumar Singh Bryon Rigg Brad Brown Patty Genualdi Eshel Liran Mick Adams Chris Eich Mike Flinn Audun Tornquist Sandeep Joshi Kirk Sinnard <1764@mn.lawson.lawson.com> Bernd Hofner Craig Perras Kirk Sinnard Matthew Newhook Gerolf Wendland Phil Mesnier Ross Dargahi Richard Orr Rich Ryan Jan Rychter Tom Marrs <0002104588@mcimail.com> Bob Olson Jean-Francois Ripouteau Ajit Sagar Ashish Singhai David Sames Gonzalo Diethelm Raj Darrin Steve Weismuller Eric C. Newton Andres Kruse Ramesh Nagabushnam Antonio Tortorici Nigel Lowe Tom Leith Greg Wilson Michael Fortinsky Marco Sommerau Gary Salsbery Eric Beser Alfred Keller John Lu James Mansion Jesper S. M|ller Chris Lahey Michael R"uger Istvan Buki Greg Wilson Garrett Conaty Brad Flood Marius Kjeldahl Steve Huston Eugene K. Plaude Joseph DeAngelis Kim Gillies Luca Priorelli Alan Stewart Hani Yakan William L. Gerecke Craig Johnston Pierre-Yves Duval Rochi Febo Dommarco Jonathan Biggar Scott Shupe Chuck Gehr Avraham Nash Padhu Ramalingam Jay Denkberg Ayman Farahat Tilo Christ Ari Erev Hamutal Yanay Vital Aza Alex Villazon David Artus Todd Barkalow Alexander Smundak Thilo Kielmann Matthias Kerkhoff Fred LaBar Hanan Herzog Eric Parker James Michael Dwyer Arun Katkere Bob Dunmire Sandro Doro Robert Lyng Phil Logan John Cosby Wayne Vucenic Harry Gunnarsson James CE Johnson Samuel_Bercovici Per Andersson Anthony McConnell Mark Rabotnikov John Bossom Rino Simioni Slawomir Kuzniar Rob Jordan Michael Maxie John Cosby Nigel Owen Jorn Jensen Paul Roman Dave Mayerhoefer Bert Craytor Joey Zhu Arthur J. Lewis Michael R. MacFaden" Eugene R. Somdahl Paul Han Jeff Morgan Arturo Montes Elliot Lau Mark Wright Michael Newton Kumar Neelakantan Scott Halstead Jean-Marc Strauss Adam Porter Hakan Kallberg Eric Dean Russell Daniel Montalibet Norbert Rapp Ganesh Pai Berni Merkle Tom Wright Torbjorn Lindgren Mike Bernat Brian Mendel Dave Mayerhoefer Jeremy Buch Kevin Boyle Kevin Martindale Luis Lopes Adrian Salt Hongbo Xu Michael Hartman Tom Dobridge Rich Christy Satoshi Ueno Eugene R. Somdahl Robert Head Ivan Murphy Jan Perman Shankar Krishnamoorthy Reza Roodsari Jim Crossley Johannes Gutleber Marina Spivak Yigong Liu Erik Urdang Mike Schweiger Anthony Mutiso Jeff R. Hayes David Brackman Dave Moore Joseph Cross Cherif Sleiman Stefan Ericsson Wei Chiang Thanh Ma I would particularly like to thank Paul Stephenson, who worked with me at Ericsson and is now at ObjectSpace. Paul devised the recursive Makefile scheme that underlies this distribution and also spent countless hours with me discussing object-oriented techniques for developing distributed application frameworks. Finally, I'd also like to thank Todd L. Montgomery , fellow heavy metal head, for fulfilling his quest to get ACE to compile with GCC! In conclusion, my goal is to see ACE continue to evolve and become a more comprehensive, robust, and well-documented C++ class library that is freely available to researchers and developers. If you have any improvements, suggestions, and or comments, I'd like to hear about it. Thanks, Douglas C. Schmidt schmidt@cs.wustl.edu