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Common Object Request Broker Architecture

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In computing, Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), is a standard for software componentry. The CORBA standard is created and controlled by the Object Management Group (OMG). It defines APIs, communication protocol, and object/service information models to enable heterogeneous applications written in various languages running on various platforms to interoperate. CORBA therefore provides platform and location transparency for sharing well-defined objects across a distributed computing platform.

In a general sense CORBA “wraps” code written in some language into a bundle containing additional information on the capabilities of the code inside, and how to call it. The resulting wrapped objects can then be called from other programs (or CORBA objects) over the network. In this sense, CORBA can be considered as a machine-readable documentation format, similar to a header file but with considerably more information.

CORBA uses an interface definition language (IDL) to specify the interfaces that objects will present to the world. CORBA then specifies a “mapping” from IDL to a specific implementation language like C++ or Java. This mapping precisely describes how the CORBA data types are to be used in both client and server implementations. Standard mappings exist for Ada, C, C++, Lisp, Smalltalk, Java, and Python. There are also non-standard mappings for Perl and Tcl implemented by ORBs written for those languages.

The CORBA IDL is only one example of an IDL. The following diagram illustrates autogeneration of the infrastructure code from an interface defined using the CORBA IDL:

File:Corba IDL.jpg

This diagram illustrates how the generated code is used within the CORBA infrastructure:

File:Corba server.jpg

In addition to providing users with a language and a platform-neutral remote procedure call specification, CORBA defines commonly needed services such as transactions and security.

Key Features

  • Internet InterORB Protocol (IIOP)
  • Dynamic Invocation Interface (DII Dynamic Invocation Interface)
  • Dynamic Skeleton Interface (DSI Data Source Interface)
  • Interface Repository (IFR Interface Repository)
  • Objects by Value (OBV Objects by Value)
  • CORBA Component Model (CCM CORBA Component Model)
  • Portable Object Adapter (POA Portable Object Adapter)
  • General InterORB Protocol (GIOP General InterORB Protocol)
  • JAVA to IDL mapping

CORBA implementations

See also

The Wikibook Programming has a page on the topic of: CORBA

References

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