Reducing Software Complexity in a Distributed Publish-Subscribe system using Multicast communication

Abstract: Systems of distributed character are increasing in size and becoming more complex. Managing and adapting to constant changes of requirements is a challenge during the entire system development life cycle. While new functionalities are implemented, the software may change in design and may lead to poor software quality and increased system complexity. This thesis focuses on tackling the complexity issue in a distributed Electronic Warfare system used in military aircraft. The system consists of a server and several clients which acts as publishers or subscribers for different events sent in the system. The communication is based on unicast and uses a publish/subscribe pattern for the client nodes to register as publishers or subscribers to the server. The system is created to handle message passing in high rate and is sensitive for message delays. Due to this, the system is dependent on a reliable network structure with a continuous necessity for development. An implementation of a multicast prototype will be replacing the topic-specific unicast communication and the publish/subscribe registration process to the server. The system will be evaluated by a comparison of the old communication version with the new multicast implementation using software metrics. The result is to evaluate if the behavior and functionality of the distributed Electronic Warfare system change.