Performance evaluation of eventing Web services in real-time applications

We propose a model for analyzing the performance of a given system that is organized around the principles of the application level protocols on which web services depend. The model is applied to a set of real world experiments using the asynchronous messaging web services standards known as WS-Notification and WS-Eventing. These experiments are conducted in the context of a real-world stock market trading application. A set of qualitative guidelines, observed from the experiments, is presented that detail the appropriate application of the web service protocols and implementations in distributed soft real-time systems.; The results of our research include quantitative comparisons of performance of eventing web services with several proprietary alternatives. These analyses support corollary findings that will be important to practitioners considering inclusion of web services in real-time systems. Among these findings is the importance of protocol selection in overall performance and variability when compared to other system factors. Another is the degree to which the ad hoc message extension practiced in web services practices can be detrimental to real-time usage. Other important qualitative conclusions are also presented. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...