Master Thesis, TU-Vienna, 2008

This thesis presents a solution to coordinate distributed web applications using XVSM (eXtensible Virtual Shared Memory)[17], a new middleware application based on the shared data space paradigm. XVSM offers various advantages to distributed applications, reducing coordination complexity and enhancing performance. The goal of this thesis is to combine the advantages XVSM offers to distributed applications with the advantages web applications offer over traditional desktop applications. Furthermore communication restrictions of current web applications are avoided by the use of Bayeux as transport mechanism. A new protocol, called XVSMP/Bayeux is developed to regulate the communication between the web application and the XVSM. A web server component and a JavaScript client library, implementing the protocol, are created. The server component provides the web application with access to the XVSM. The JavaScript library offers a simple API to facilitate the development of distributed web applications. Operations on the XVSM can be performed using the methods of the API. The API makes the XVSMP/Bayeux protocol and the message exchange with the XVSM transparent to the web application developer. The protocol messages are exchanged through a new transport mechanism called Bayeux. Bayeux was designed to overcome current communication restrictions web applications suffer due to the nature of the HTTP protocol. This work also includes two sample applications to demonstrate the use of this technology.