Distributed object communication

In a distributed computing environment, distributed object communication realizes communication between distributed objects. The main role is to allow objects to access data and invoke methods on remote objects (objects residing in non-local memory space). Invoking a method on a remote object is known as remote method invocation (RMI) or remote invocation, and is the object-oriented programming analog of a remote procedure call (RPC).

Protocols using stub/skeleton approach

• Portable Distributed Objects (PDO) - Objective-C
• Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) – inter-language
• Java remote method invocation (Java RMI) – Java
• Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) – Microsoft, inter-language

  (note that the stub is called "proxy" and the skeleton is called "stub")

• .NET Remoting – Microsoft, inter-language
• DDObjects – Borland Delphi
• Distributed Ruby (DRb) – Ruby

References

• Plášil, František and Stal, Michael. "An Architectural View of Distributed Objects and Components in CORBA, Java RMI, and COM/DCOM", Software Concepts & Tools (vol. 19, no. 1), January, 1998.
• Druschel, Peter "Distributed Program Construction"
• Farley, Jim. Java Distributed Computing, O'Reilly, January, 1998.
• Research Papers, Distributed Systems Research Group, Charles University Prague