Summary

This Recommendation describes the Distributed Processing Environment (DPE) Architecture, which represents the run-time environment for telecommunication and information services and applications.

The purpose of the DPE Architecture is to provide detailed technical requirements leading to specifications, both to help the DPE vendors to develop their products and the application developer to understand the infrastructure support that the DPE provides.

The material herein is based on work done in the TINA Consortium by the TINA core team and several auxiliary projects in the member companies of TINA-C, supporting the core team.

This Recommendation contains:

•            an explanation of the relationship between modelling concepts so far as such a relationship needs to be concerned in the computing architecture;

•            a description of the Kernel Transport Network (KTN) which is the DPE analogue of the telecommunications signalling system;

•            an interoperability framework for the DPE;

•            requirements for the DPE kernel services.

A number of DPE engineering object services can be identified, that support the execution of telecommunication services. These DPE object services are identified and associated to the functions and transparencies of the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP). Detailed requirements on the DPE object services and their specifications are for further study.

The DPE, the DPE object services and the applications deployed on a DPE need to be managed. What are the requirements on management, and how can management of these entities be accomplished is also for further study.

Not all DPE kernel services identified in this Recommendation are required for all applications. DPE profiles that support different kinds of services and applications need to be defined. These profiles need to specify which kernel services are mandatory for a given profile. The definition of DPE profiles and their use are for further study. The DPE must support quality of service (QoS) as needed by the services and applications. How this is accomplished by the DPE is for further study.