Real-time Consultants Group Ltd’s subsidiary Object Oriented Technologies has launched a Distributed Object Management Environment toolkit or DOME for building the most advanced object request brokers there are. The product is the Leamington Spa, Warwickshire-based firm’s own implementation of the Object Management Group’s Common Object Request Broker Architecture, although it does differ from CORBA in some respects – we took an objective look at CORBA and it is unworkable in places, Object Oriented Technologies declared. For example, it says, the Distributed Object Management Environment uses static invocation rather than the recommended dynamic invocation – this means that a given system is prevented from working unless all the necessary objects needed to run it are in place, thus adding an element of robustness. Dynamic invocation, conversely, has the potential to create chaos because a system will still run even if all the necessary objects are not residing in the system this can result in it going down. Furthermore, the Common Object Request Broker specifies that objects should be written in C, whereas Object Oriented Technologies reckons C++ is better – it offers a cleaner interface because most application developers are using it.

Range of objects

The object request brokers built using the Distributed Object Management Environment sit on top of any computer they have been implemented for, whether that be a personal computer or mid-range Unix box. Current options include Hewlett-Packard Co, Sun Microsystems Inc and Stratus Computer Inc machines. A range of objects are supplied to cope with different graphical user interfaces such as Motif, and databases such as Oracle Corp’s. Customers are also offered different network driver options so they can use varying types of networks, including TCP/IP and NetBIOS-based ones. All such facilities are supplied as different class libraries so that users can mix and match. Essentially, Distributed Object Management Environment provides all the necessary links because programs interface only to the Distributed Object Management Environment, and the Distributed Object Management Environment interfaces to the outside world. So, if a user wants his or her personal computer to talk to a machine running under Unix, the Distributed Object Management Environment on the personal computer talks to the Distributed Object Management Environment on the Unix machine – the software just thinks everything is one machine. The Distributed Object Management Environment is available now. It costs UKP3,500 for a development licence, varies in price for an object request broker run-time licence, and costs UKP15,000 for a site licence. The next thing up Object Oriented Technologies’s sleeve is a C++ applications generator – it already has a name, ObjectCraft although no release date was available. And the company also hopes to announce a new agreement with a network product modelling company at the ObjectWorld show this month. The third party product should enable Distributed Object Management Environment users to design, build and test distributed systems, the company promises.