ACE+TAOACE+TAO

Better Living Through (Open-source) Better Living Through (Open-source) MiddlewareMiddleware

ISIS 10 Year AnniversaryISIS 10 Year AnniversaryFriday, April 21, 2023Friday, April 21, 2023

Dr. Douglas C. Schmidt d.schmidt@vanderbilt.edu

www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/~schmidt

Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee

Institute for Software Integrated

Systems

1. 11/9/892. 8/9/953. Work Flow Software

4. Open-Sourcing5. Outsourcing6. Offshoring7. Supply-Chaining8. Insourcing9. In-forming10. The Steroids

Ten Forces that Flattened the World

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_is_Flat

Open-Sourcing – Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities

• Open-source is a scalable, cost effective, & reliable software process since:

• Validation scales, development doesn’t

• “End-to-end argument” applies to software

• i.e., More resources at “periphery” than in “core”

Open-Sourcing – Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities

• Open-source is a scalable, cost effective, & reliable software process since:

• Validation scales, development doesn’t

• “End-to-end argument” applies to software

• i.e., More resources at “periphery” than in “core”

• Open-source enables other flatteners

• Lowers barriers to entry

• Leverages global software talent

• Accelerates technology transfer

Open-source is essential for computing R&D visibility & impact

• Widely used open-source middleware• 1,000’s of user companies,

many mission-critical

• www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/ users.html

Overview of ACE+TAO Open-Source Middleware

ORB COREORB CORE

ACE CoreACE Core

ServerServer

GIOPGIOP

Portable Object

Adaptor

Portable Object

AdaptorIDLIDLDSIDSI

ClientClient

IDLIDLDIIDII

O/S KernelO/S Kernel

ORB Interface

ORB Interface

Real time I/OSubsystem

Real time I/OSubsystem

PortableInterceptors

PortableInterceptors

Pluggable transportsPluggable transports

UIOPUIOP

IIOPIIOP

SHMIOPSHMIOPThreadingModels

ThreadingModels

SmartProxies

SmartProxies

AMIAMI OBVOBV

SSLIOPSSLIOP

DIOPDIOP

MinimumCORBA

MinimumCORBA

RTCORBA

RTCORBA

InterfaceRepository

InterfaceRepository

IDLCompiler

IDLCompiler

ImplementationRepository

ImplementationRepository

Many CORBA Object Services

Many CORBA Object Services

Pattern-oriented Network Programming

Framework

Pattern-oriented Network Programming

Framework

• Widely used open-source middleware• 1,000’s of user companies,

many mission-critical

• www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/ users.html

• 100’s of person years & over 2 million lines of code/tests on dozens of OS/compiler platforms• Automation of quality assurance

Overview of ACE+TAO Open-Source Middleware

• Widely used open-source middleware• 1,000’s of user companies,

many mission-critical

• www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/ users.html

• 100’s of person years & over 2 million lines of code/tests on dozens of OS/compiler platforms• Automation of quality assurance

• ~10-15 core developers at any given time, but over 2,200 contributors in periphery during past 18 years•

Main SiteVanderbilt University (USA)

Engineering CentersGateshead, UK

St. Louis, MO (USA) Boston, MA (USA)

Gelderland, Holland

Overview of ACE+TAO Open-Source Middleware

www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/contributors.html

• Subject of 350+ technical papers & a half-dozen books

Overview of ACE+TAO Open-Source Middleware

• Subject of 350+ technical papers & a half-dozen books

• Led to 9 doctoral graduates & 25 masters graduates since 1997• A dozen more doctoral students are in the pipeline

Overview of ACE+TAO Open-Source Middleware

• Subject of 350+ technical papers & a half-dozen books

• Led to 9 doctoral graduates & 25 masters graduates since 1997• A dozen more doctoral students are in the pipeline

• Responsible for over $20 million in funding since 1995• AFRL, ARL, AFOSR, DARPA, Mitre, NASA, NSF, ONR

• BAE Systems, BBN, Boeing, GDIS, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, SAIC

• ATD, Cisco, Comverse, Ericsson, General Electric, Global MT, Hughes, Kodak, Krones, Lucent, Microsoft, Motorola,, Nokia, Nortel, OCI, Oresis, Object Sciences, OTI, PrismTech, QNX, Qualcomm,, Siemens, Sprint, Symantec, Telcordia, Tech-X, UBS, USENIX, Veritas

Overview of ACE+TAO Open-Source Middleware

• Subject of 350+ technical papers & a half-dozen books

• Led to 9 doctoral graduates & 25 masters graduates since 1997• A dozen more doctoral students are in the pipeline

• Responsible for over $20 million in funding since 1995• Thousands of downloads

per month, which enhances visibility/impact & drives future sponsors & collaborations download.dre.vanderbilt.edu/usage

Overview of ACE+TAO Open-Source Middleware

A Sampling of ACE+TAO Users

www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/users.html

Communications Military/Aerospace Transport Management

Applying ACE+TAO in the DoD

• US Navy DDG1000 program with Raytheon, LMCO, & DARPA

• US Air Force in collaboration with Boeing

• Joint forces with JTRS SCA in collaboration with BAE Systems

• JTT with US Army & Raytheon

ACE & TAO middleware has been transitioned to hundreds of DoD programs & projects, including

• USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier advanced tactical displays system

• DMSO HLA/RTI & TENA with SAIC

Applying ACE+TAO to Mission- & Life-Critical Embedded Systems

• Siemens hot rolling mills

• GE & Phillips electronic medical imaging systems

• The Weather Channel

• Krones Beer Bottling Equipment

Concluding RemarksResearchers & developers of distributed real-time & embedded (DRE) systems face common challenges

R&D Synergies

Our open-source ACE+TAO middleware has had a major impact on addressing these challenges for research & production DRE systems

•e.g., connection management, service initialization, error handling, flow & congestion control, event demuxing, distribution, concurrency control, fault tolerance synchronization, scheduling, & persistence

StandardCOTS

R&D

UserNeeds

R&D