The Object Management Group previewed the next major release of its Corba Common Object Request Broker technology yesterday, promising features intended to make the technology easier to use. That should translate into more widespread implementation, the Group said. Corba 3.0 adds support for standardized distributed components that will run across multiple platforms and that are written in multiple languages. It also adds vital integration with the Java programming language and the internet, new messaging support and support for legacy environments. The Corba component model specifies a framework for the development of plug and play Corba objects, which, says the OMG will significantly decrease the learning curve for developing and using Corba servers and client. Where the language is Java, the framework maps straight into the Enterprise Java Beans framework, but there is an equivalent framework for non-Java languages. A Corba scripting language specification is intended to make the composition of Corba components easier. Final details are being worked out next week, but TCL, JavaScript and Visual Basic are all likely to be supported. Java language to IDL mapping will allow developers to use Java for development and generate Corba IDL from the Java class files, so that other binary applications can access Java applications using Sun’s RMI Remote Method Invocation over the IIOP Internet InterORB Protocol. Firewall interfaces and DCE/Corba integration – now admitted to be a purely legacy issue – have also been included. And specifications for minimum Corba for embedded systems and real-time Corba for applications that need deterministic behavior are being defined. 3.0 will also include the previously talked-about asynchronous messaging support. A pre-production version of 3.0 will be out before year-end, with a final release expected by the middle of 1999. Iona Technologies Inc is already promising that Art, its implementation of Corba 3.0, should appear in December. The OMG says it now has some 800 members, 70% of them end-users. While Corba hasn’t made the mass market yet, it’s been implemented in some form by most of the Fortune 1000, and used on some giant projects, such as Motorola Inc’s Iridium satellite network. The component framework will be the basis for new development tools – such as the application server developer to be included with Iona’s Art – that should make the task somewhat easier, although as everyone admits, developing distributed applications will never be easy.
