An empirical comparison of Java remote communication primitives for intra-node data transmission

This paper presents a benchmarking suite that measures the performance of using sockets and eXtensible Markup Language remote procedure calls (XML-RPC) to exchange intra-node messages between Java virtual machines (JVMs). The paper also reports on an empirical study comparing sockets and XML-RPC with response time measurements from timers that use both operating system tools and Java language instrumentation. By leveraging packet filters inside the GNU/Linux kernel, the benchmark suite also calculates network resource consumption. Moreover, the framework interprets the response time results in light of memory subsystem metrics characterizing the behavior of the JVM. The empirical findings indicate that sockets perform better when transmitting small to very large objects, while XML-RPC exhibits lower response time than sockets with extremely large bulk data transfers. The experiments reveal trade-offs in performance and thus represent the first step towards determining if Java remote communication primitives can support the efficient exchange of intra-node messages.