An active platform as middleware for services and communities discovery

In an increasing number of cases, network hosts need to locate a machine based on its role in a service or community rather than based on a well-known address. We propose and evaluate WASP, a lightweight active platform where ephemeral state left in the network can help locate service providers such as request dispatchers or computation aggregators. In an active grid architecture, WASP can also help locate participants, build and manage overlays.