CORBA

Team 12

Jean Lefever
Brian Podolny
Teresa Chang
Russ Weitz
 Introduction
CORBA (Common Object Request Broker
Architecture) is a standard that enables an
object written in one programming
language, running on one platform to
interact with objects across the network
that are written in other programming
languages and running on other platforms.
For example, a client object written in C++
and running under Windows can
communicate with an object on a remote
machine written in Java running under
UNIX.

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 OMG
The CORBA specification was developed
by the Object Management Group (OMG).
The OMG is an international, not-for-profit
group consisting of approximately 800
companies and organizations defining
standards for distributed object computing
CORBA is only one of the specifications
they develop. They are also behind other
key object oriented standards such as
UML (Unified Modeling Language).

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 History
The OMG was established in 1988 and the
initial CORBA specification came out in
1992. Over the past 10 years significant
revisions have taken place.

Version 2.0, which defined a common

protocol for specifying how implementations
from different vendors can communicate,
was released in the mid-nineties.

The current version of CORBA is 3.0, which

introduced the CORBA Component Model.

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 Today
Today, CORBA serves as middleware for
a variety of large enterprise level
applications.
One of the most important and most
frequent uses is for servers that must
handle a large number of clients, at high
hit rates, with high reliability.
The current users of CORBA are diverse
- including The Weather Channel,
GNOME, US Army, CNN, and Charles
Schwab.
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 Specification vs.
Implementation
CORBA, as defined by the OMG, is a
standard or specification and not a particular
piece of software.
CORBA 3.0 is actually a suite of 10
standards, each defining aspects of a
CORBA implementation.
Several implementations of the CORBA
standard exist. Among the most widely used
are IBM’s SOM (a.k.a. SOMobjects) and
DSOM architectures. There are also free
implementations available for general use.

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 CORBA Integrations
An implementation of CORBA has been
integrated into Netscape browsers.

CORBA has been built into Netscape ONE

(Open Network Environment) - Netscape’s
application environment based on open
internet standards.

The Enterprise Edition of IBM’s WebSphere

(a software platform to help build and
deploy high performance web sites)
integrates CORBA (as well as Enterprise
Java Beans) to build highly transactional,
high-volume e-business applications

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Standard Call and Return
Servant
Client (Server)
App. / Applet

Skeleton
IDL
Stub
POA

ORB IIOP ORB

Client Call
Return Value
CORBACORBA Architecture
Three-tier CORBA Architecture
 The Primary Elements
 IDL
 Interface Definition Language
 Client / Server CORBA Objects
 Abstract objects based upon a concrete
implementation
 ORBs
 Object Request Brokers
 GIOP / IIOP
 General and Internet Inter-Object
Protocols

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Interface Definition Language
 Defines public interface for any
CORBA server.
 C++ like syntax
 Client and Server implemented
based on compilation of the same
IDL (usually)
 OMG has defined mappings for:
 C, C++, Java, COBOL, Smalltalk, ADA, Lisp,
Python, and IDLscript

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 Highlighted IDL Features
 Pass by reference and by value
 In, out, and inout parameters
 Inheritance
 Throwing of exceptions
 The Any Type
 Callbacks
 Enables Peer-to-Peer Object
Communication.
 Also supports:
 structs, unions, enumerations, all c++
scalars, arrays, sequences, octets, strings,
constants, and typedefs.

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Steps to Write a CORBA Object in
Java
Client / Server CORBA
Objects
CORBA OBJECT
(abstract)

Implementation
Implementation Object
(“CORBA” enabled)

Local Server
Member Object
Object
Local Server
Object
Client / Server CORBA Objects
Cont.
 Abstract
 Do not have their own implementation. The elements
of a CORBA object (interface, implementation, and
location) are held rendered via other elements.
 Implemented via a Servant
 A servant is a block of code (usually an instance of
a class) which implements the public interface of the
CORBA object. Depending on the server policies,
there may or may not be multiple instances of the
servant and it may or may not be multi-threaded.
 Configured in code or at server startup
 Unlike COM+ and EJB the policies for a CORBA
object which control things such as Security,
threading, and persistence are not console
configurable

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 Object Request Brokers
(Orbs)
 Responsible for all communication
 Locating objects
 Implementation specific
 Known IOR(Inter-Object Reference)
 Naming and Trading Services( DSN-like)
 Transferring invocations and return values
 Notifying other ORBs of hosted Objects
 Must be able to communicate IDL
invocations via IIOP
 If an ORB is OMG compliant, then it is
interoperable with all other OMG
compliant ORBs

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 Additional ORB Services
 Interface Repository
 A Database of all of the IDL for compiled
objects running on the ORB
 Implementation Repository
 A Database containing policy information
and the implementation details for the
CORBA objects running on the ORB
 Load Balancing
 Fail-over support
 Security

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 Application in Software
Projects
 Rapid development of API’s
 Inter-language and operating
system operability
 Legacy system wrappers
 IIOP faster than HTTP
 Simplifies development of
distributed applications

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 Drawbacks
 Lower Level than COM+/.NET/EJB
 Configuration in Code
 Steeper Learning Curve than other
solutions.

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 Object Management
Architecture(OMA)
 Center of all the activity
undertaken by OMG
 OMA specifies a range of
architectural entities surrounding
the core ORB, which is CORBA
proper
 Detailed specifications for each
component and interface category
is populated in OMA reference
Model
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OMA Reference Model
 CORBA Services
 CORBA Services provides basic
functionality, similar to the services
that system library calls do in
UNIX. Functions includes creating
objects, controlling access to
objects, keeping track of relocated
objects and to consistently
maintain relationship between
objects.

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 Horizontal CORBA
Facilities
 Horizontal CORBA Facilities sit
between the CORBA services and
Application objects. These
components providing support
across an enterprise and across
business. Four facilities: the
Printing Facilities, the Secure Time
Facilities, the Internationalization
Facilities, and Mobile Agent
Facilities.

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Domain(Vertical) CORBA
Facilities
 Domain CORBA Facilities are the
most exciting work at OMG. Define
a standard interfaces for standard
objects shared by companies
within a specific vertical
market(e.g. healthcare,
manufacturing, finance). Now nine
industries have their own OMG
task force.

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 Application Objects
 Topmost part of the OMA hierarchy.
 Provide access to application objects
that can invoke methods on remote
objects through ORB. Application is built
from a large number of basic object
classes, new classes can be generated
or specified provided by CORBA
services.
 Standardization is not required.

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 Three Benefits of using
OMA
1. Coding is quicker, so application
can be deployed sooner
2. Applications designed around
discrete services have better
architecture
3. Many OMA implementations have
enterprise characteristics built in:
they’re robust, and they scale

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 CORBA vs. DCOM
 DCOM supports an object-
oriented model, but differs
substantially from classical OO
models. DCOM object provides
services through one or more
distinct interfaces.
 DCOM is lack of polymorphism,
instead, it constructs application
from binary components.
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 CORBA vs. DCOM
 The major difference is CORBA is an
open specification. DCOM has the
potential to evolve at a faster rate than
CORBA because the politics will be
simpler.
 CORBA can be deployed far more widely
than DCOM and runs in most current OS
environment, while DCOM is running
almost exclusively in the Windows
environment.

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 CORBA vs. JAVA/RMI
 Some overlap between these two,
both provide a viable means of
building distributed applications.
 CORBA is concerned with
interfaces between objects and
applications modeled as objects,
Java is primarily concerned with
the implementation of these
objects.
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 CORBA vs. JAVA/RMI
 JAVA/RMI systems fall short of
seamless integration because of
their interoperability requirements
with other languages. JAVA/RMI
system assumes the
homogeneous environment of the
JVM, which can only take
advantage of Java Object Model.
 Coexistence between CORBA and
Java
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The Future of CORBA
 Much easier for developers to build and
run client/server applications written in
different languages using the IDL
interface
 Compute-domain benefits
 Functionality the same as if written to
sockets or some other RPC device
 Business-domain benefits
 Allows rapid development of full service
website

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 Compute-Domain
Enhancements
in traditional business
 Remote access to all network
systems for employees.
 product descriptions
 pricing

 stock

 order placement

 customer credit data

 Business works smarter, not

harder
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 Business-Domain
Enhancements
for e-business
 Builds on compute-domain work
 add web functionality to existing internal
network
 uses CORBA’s IDL to integrate new
processes
 Development and maintenance of
customer centered e-commerce site is
still manageable for IT department.
 Gives business time to sell product, not
fix problems

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 Companies Using
CORBA Today
 AT&T
 Late 1990’s developed 20 to 40 systems using
CORBA for both internal and external access
 Are certain development time for future projects
will be greatly reduced by building reusable
frameworks with the OMG
 The Weather Channel
 Used CORBA and Linux
 System is reliable, low maintenance, offers data
logging
 Cut software development time from months to
weeks

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Companies Using CORBA
Today
 Raytheon Company
 Needed to update its complex real-time
distributed system
 Built new system using C++ and CORBA
 Ready to build next generation system

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Companies with Plans to
Develop Using CORBA
 Chase Manhattan Bank
 Plans to develop wholesale banking service
 Will use CORBA and Java-based middleware
 Further plans to introduce Java-based mortgage
application service as well as integration with
third-party applications possibly by year’s end
 Nokia Telecommunications
 Combining use of Orbix and CORBA to continue
enhancing products and manage value added
services based on a common architecture.

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 NOKIA
“Nokia’s decision [to use CORBA]
highlights the continuing adoption of
CORBA and is recognition of the fast,
effective, scaleable and open approach
to the development of powerful,
intelligent, mission-critical network
services that CORBA offers.”

Colin Newman, VP Marketing at IONA

(Developers of the Orbix ORB)

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 References

 www.oma.org
 www.corba.org
 developer.java.sun.com/developer/
onlineTraining/corba

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