Common Object Request Broker Architecture


Common Object Request Broker Architecture

(standard, programming)(CORBA) An Object Management Groupspecification which provides a standard messaging interfacebetween distributed objects.

The original CORBA specification (1.1) has been revisedthrough version 2 (CORBA 2) with the latest specificationbeing version 3 (CORBA 3). In its most basic form CORBAconsists of the Interface Definition Language (IDL) and theDynamic Invocation Interface (DII).

The IDL definition is complied into a Stub (client) andSkeleton (server) component that communicate through anObject Request Broker (ORB). When an ORB determines that arequest is to a remote object, it may execute the request bycommunicating with the remote ORB.

The Corba IDL can be mapped to a number of languages includingC, C++, Java, COBOL, Smalltalk, Ada, Lisp,Python, and IDLscript. CORBA ORBs are widely availablefor a number of platforms. The OMG standard for inter-ORBcommunication is IIOP, this ensures that all CORBA 2compliant ORBS are able to interoperate.

Latest version: Corba 3.0.3 2004-03-12, as of 2007-09-04.

See also COSS, Component Object Model, RMI.

OMG CORBA specs.