Distributed messaging using meta channels and message bins

Abstract

Edge servers are used to connect sensor networks to the enterprise network. Using asynchronous messaging for communication between components is attractive as it lessens the degree of coupling within the system, thereby increasing the system robustness. In order to be scalable, the messaging system itself must be distributed. Existing work in the literature describes how to build distributed messaging systems which scale to networks the size of the Internet using message routing. Here we explain why we find these solutions inappropriate for communication within the edge server architecture. We describe an alternative means of achieving scalable distributed messaging that we call message binning. We motivate the feasibility of our architecture through a description of its implementation and use in our edge server system. © 2005 IEEE.