The CORBA and ORB summary on this page was compiled using articles from "Communications of the ACM" magazine. The full reference is available here.

CORBA

Various Software Applications Working Together

Being able to choose components from various vendors offers the opportunity to create custom configurations that meet particular computing needs and cost requirements. CORBA is a solution for making various software applications work together.

CORBA is a conceptual "software bus" that allows applications to communicate with one another regardless of who designed them, the platform they are running on, the language they are written in and where they are executing.

Like other software objects, a CORBA object consists of data and methods. The object's public interface is defined through the CORBA Interface Definition Language (IDL).

CORBA has been proposed as a standard by the Object Management Group (OMG), a consortium of leading companies interested in a robust solution to making software interoperate.

Standards Facilitate Plug-And-Play Integration

While CORBA and its IDL provide the infrastructure objects use to link together, the OMG has proposed the Object Management Architecture (OMA) which standardizes the component interfaces. The standard is meant to facilitate a plug-and-play development approach based on object technology.

OMA Consists of two major components: the CORBAservices and the CORBAfacilities. CORBAservices provide the basic functionality that almost every object needs. CORBAfacilities provide functionality at the application level.

ORBs

ORBs Broker Between Client and Object

As the provider of CORBAservices, the Object Request Broker (ORB) is a middleware component that implements the CORBA bus and acts as a broker between the client and the object. The ORB manages the client request and hides the location and implementation details from the client.

This Group Project

This project includes summaries and implementations of the Naming and Event services, a comparison of ORB vendors and a look at how ORBs are used in the telecommunications industry.

The Hawaii Group

Sara Bogdanove
ORBs In The Telecommunications Industry

Peter Jacobs
Event Service Summary

Uma Jaipradeep
Naming Service Summary

Prasad Joshi
Naming Service Implementation

Tawee Pimsarn
Event Service Implementation

Maria Gina Sian
Vendor Comparison