CORBA: integrating diverse applications within distributed heterogeneous environments

Abstract

Large computer networks such as corporate intranets and the Internet are inherently heterogeneous due to such factors as increasingly rapid technological change, engineering trade-offs, accumulation of legacy systems over time, and varying system costs. Unfortunately, such heterogeneity makes the development and maintenance of applications that make the best use of such networks difficult. The Common Object Request Broker Architecture specification created by the Object Management Group provides a stable model for distributed object-oriented systems that helps developers cope with heterogeneity and inevitable change. Applications written to the CORBA standard are abstracted away from underlying networking protocols and transports, instead relying on object request brokers to provide a fast and flexible communication and object activation substrated. The abstractions provided by CORBA ORBs are currently serving as the basis for applications in a wide variety of problem domains, including telecommunications, finance, medicine, and manufacturing, running on platforms ranging from mainframes down to test and measurement equipment. This article first provides an overview of the Object Management Architecture, then describes in detail the CORBA component of that architecture, and concludes with a description of the OMG organization along with some of its current and future work.