Evaluation and Comparison of CORBA (Object Request Broker) Implementations

Diploma Thesis from the year 2002 in the subject Computer Science - Software, grade: 1,0, Vienna University of Technology (Informatik), language: English, abstract: Inhaltsangabe:Abstract:§Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), a standard from the Object Management Group (OMG), defines a vendor-independent architecture and infrastructure for distributed systems. Further CORBA species a client-server platform as well as an object-oriented programming model for distributed computing.The Object Request Broker (ORB) implements the part of CORBA which manages communication and data exchange between objects. CORBA-based applications often have to communicate with ORBs from different vendors. Therefore testing the interoperability is one important point in this work.§Six actually available ORB implementations are shown and compared at given features. If a problem has to be solved with CORBA, it is necessary to choose the best ORB implementation for that purpose, because they differ often at significant points. Important details for decision are Standard Conformity, Robustness, Functionality as well as Functional Range or Interoperability. Exactly these properties are to be examined in this work. The investigation is performed on six, at the web available ORBs indeed Jacorb 1.4 beta 2, Orbacus 4.1.0, Orbix E2A 2.0, OpenORB 1.2.0, J2SE ORB 1.4.0 as well as TAO 1.2.1 all in their most actual released version. §Additionally to these properties the correct implementation of the most important CORBA Services is checked. They are Event Service, Notification Service, Name Service and Transaction Service. The ORBs are compared at this given properties.It shows§that the ORBs differ very much from each other and that the CORBA Services are often implemented incorrectly. Further a high costly implementation is no guarantee for best quality at all points. The evaluation shows that a freely available ORB can be as good as or better than a commercial one.§Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Contents:§1.Introduction§1.1Motivation1§1.2Project Objectives1§1.3Related Work2§1.4Content of the following Sections2§2.CORBA Basics§2.1Overview5§2.2Major Parts of an ORB9§2.2.1Core Compnents9§2.2.2Object Adaptors11§2.3CORBA Services12§2.4OMG Interface Definition Language21§2.5BOA to POA Migration23§3.ORB Evaluation and Comparison§3.1Chosen ORBs25§3.1.1Jacorb1.4 beta225§3.1.2Orbacus 4.1.025§3.1.3OrbixE2A 2.025§3.1.4OpenORB 1.2.026§3.1.5J2SEORB 1.4.026§3.1.6TAO The Ace ORB 1.2.126§3.2Evaluation-Environment26§3.3Installation27§3.4Standard Conformity30§3.4.1Interface Definition Language30§3.4.2Basic Remote Invocation32§3.4.3Dynamic Type Manipulation33§3.4.4Repositories34§3.5Throughput- and Robustness-Tests36§3.5.1Test-Environment36§3.5.2Test-Description38§3.5.3Test-Results41§3.5.4Reactivation Mechanism for Crashed Servers46§3.6Functionality46§3.7Functional Range48§3.8Interoperability51§3.9CORBA Services56§3.9.1Event Service56§3.9.2Notification Service57§3.9.3Name Service58§3.9.4Transaction Service59§3.10Miscellanea60§3.10.1Requirenments60§3.10.2Development61§3.10.3Documentation62§3.10.4Vendor64§4.Conclusion§4.1Essential ORB Decision-Contributing Features66§4.2Summary67§A.Appendix§A.1Class-Diagrams for the generated Java Classes69§A.2Stock Example IDL-Listing