An approach to module distribution for the design of embedded distributed software systems

Designing embedded distributed software systems is very complex due to the tremendous interactions between the components of the systems. One of the critical tasks in designing an embedded distributed software system is the module distribution-the distribution of functional modules to software components. In this paper, an approach to module distribution for the design of embedded distributed software systems is presented. The objective of this approach is to exploit the potential concurrency between functional modules and to avoid nonprofitable message traffic under the constraint that some functional modules cannot reside in the same software component. In this approach, module distribution is divided into three steps. The first step is to detect the potential concurrent invocable resources (PCIRs) -those modules that can be invoked directly or indirectly by concurrently executing modules simultaneously. The second step is to duplicate the PCIRs such that the number of duplicates is minimal. The third step distributes the functional modules into a set of software components to satisfy the above design objectives.