Burlington, Massachusetts-based object component house I-Kinetics Inc has an early version of its Database Component Server 3.0 database access mechanism up on the beta version of Digital Equipment Corp’s ObjectBroker 2.6 object request broker. The component server, now being positioned as what is called a universal data access mechanism for getting at any data available to Corba environments, in Corba Interface Definition Language is already up on Iona Technologies Ltd’s Orbix object request broker and the company is still promising a version for use with SunSoft Inc’s Neo ORB implementation early next year and is eyeing Hewlett-Packard Co’s ORB Plus and IBM Corp’s Distributed Systems Object Model. The software currently supports Oracle and Sybase access from Corba and Object Linking & Embedding clients – it has an unnamed object database vendor waiting to come on stream anytime now. I-Kinetics Inc believes vendors like Sun Microsystems Inc are actively investigating the availabil ity of Universal Data Access mechanisms that can retrieve information to a user’s desktop over C++, Java, Smalltalk ORBs, object-relational links and other mechanisms without the user having to know or under-stand what those mechanisms are. It is a concept akin to Microsoft Corp’s data access objects system. I-Kinetics describes its component server as an interface to Universal Data Access mechanisms kicking ideas around with Sun. I-Kinetics’ Object-Pump, which puts an object wrapper around non-Corba code to make it available to the component server, is now expected to beta test in November, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs expected to get an early version in August. ObjectPump creates meta data objects which point the component server to pieces of code, which could be pieces of legacy applications, protocols, or database rows. Other features planned for ObjectPump include the ability to dynamically add Corba object services, including security and events, and to partition or replicate components selectively. I-Kinetics is also developing a virtual application warehouse which it says will store objects as business components which can be shared as Object Linking & Embedding Controls eXtensions. Development of ObjectPump is being funded by a US government grant to the ComponentWare Consortium of which I-Kinetics is a founder member. The consortium’s goal is to package data and applications as standard, re-usable software components using Corba, Object Linking & Embeddi ng and its member’s technology. On the horizon, I-Kinetics and Component-Ware Consortium partners will offer horizontal and vertical industry components and component assemblies. I-Kinetics is to focus on technology for finance, defense and NASA mar kets. Siemens AG is a recent addition to the consortium ranks. The privately-held I-Kinetics reckons it will be up to 60 people by the year-end from 45 now and expects to do $5m next year – more if a large defense contract bid it is part of is won.
