PeeRCR: a distributed P2P-based reusable component repository system

Abstract

For software reuse to be successful, a repository for storing and retrieving reusable components is essential. The traditional component repositories almost adopt Client/Server mode and offer a centralized authority on reusable components stored. However, such C/S-based repositories suffer from several limitations. This paper presents the design and implementation of an original P2P-based reusable component repository system called PeeRCR that enables the sharing of reusable component in a large distributed environment. We build the PeeRCR system using peer-to-peer distributed hash table protocol. The PeeRCR uses two kinds of index dictionaries (Local Dictionary and DHT-based Peer Dictionary respectively) together to assist in processing reusable component queries. We also implement a number of alternative scheme repositories to evaluate the performance of the PeeRCR. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the PeeRCR for sharing reusable components in a large distributed and dynamic environment.