Picture of Jasper van BATEN (2022)At the CAPE-OPEN 2022 Annual Meeting, on behalf of the Methods & Tools Special Interest Group (M&T SIG) of CO-LaN, Jasper van BATEN (AmsterCHEM) presented (PDF, 1150 Kbytes) the recommendations made by M&T SIG on COBIA Threading architecture.

Before arriving to these recommendations, Jasper first demonstrates the importance of considering multi-threading in order to fully use the power of modern-day computers, Then, in the context of interoperability of applications through CAPE-OPEN, Jasper shows, through several examples, that synchronization around multi-threaded calls has to be organized by PMEs.

Since COM middleware is the most used so far in applying CAPE-OPEN interoperability, Jasper summarizes how multi-threading is handled in COM. He is especially pointing out where performance is impacted when multiple threads are used. He then describe several pitfalls discovered in the way synchronization is handled in PMEs implementing CAPE-OPEN.

Next Jasper describes what are the threading models proposed for COBIA middleware, emphasizing that the proposal differs from COM Threading Architecture by applying a threading model per PMC rather than per thread like in COM. This design decision avoids the inherent complexity of COM Threading Architecture. The description given includes COM-COBIA interoperability and what this implies.

Jasper concludes by announcing a release for Request For Comments of the document describing the COBIA Threading Architecture.

CO2022 COBIA THREADING

Within the playlist of the CAPE-OPEN 2022 Annual Meeting, a recording of the presentation is available on the CAPE-OPEN YouTube channel.