Non-Blocking Babel RMI

Non-Blocking RMI is an even more advanced topic, but it is essential to high-speed distributed computing. Non-Blocking RMI allows the user to mix work and communication. Many scientific computing related methods may take a very long time to complete, and the client might like to do some work while waiting. Non-blocking calls return immediately after sending the information to the server. When the response comes back, the user can make a special call to access the data. During the time between the send and the receive, the client is free to do other work.

There are two types of Non-blocking RMI in Babel, Nonblocking and oneway. Both are declared as attributes on the method in SIDL. The difference is that with oneway communication, the client does not expect any return values. A oneway method will not even return an exception, unless it occurs during communication with the server. On the other hand, a non-blocking call can have return arguments. The user will send a request, and get a sidl.rmi.Ticket. Later, the user may use the Ticket to receive the out arguments.



Subsections


babel-1.4.0
users_guide Last Modified 2008-10-16

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