CORBA

CORBA is the acronym for Common Object Request Broker Architecture. CORBA is OMG's open, vendor-independent specification for an architecture and infrastructure that computer applications use to work together over networks.

CORBA is useful in many situations. Because of the easy way that CORBA integrates machines from so many vendors, with sizes ranging from mainframes through minis and desktops to hand-helds and embedded systems, it is the middleware of choice for large (and even not-so-large) enterprises.

CORBA is a client/server implementation whose main value is interoperability. This interoperability is the result of the OMG Interface Definition Language (OMG IDL). The OMG IDL enables the separation of the interface from the implementation. The interface of each client or server is defined using IDL very strictly but the code and the data of the client or server is hidden (encapsulated) from the rest of the system and only access the rest of the system through their advertised IDL interface. This allows a CORBA-based program from any vendor, on almost any computer, operating system, programming language, and network, to interoperate with a CORBA-based program from the same or another vendor, on almost any other computer, operating system, programming language, and network.

Going beyond a typical CASE tool, the Telelogic® Rhapsody® Model-Driven Development (MDD) environment enables you to develop distributed applications using CORBA. In fact, Telelogic Rhapsody is the only MDD technology on the market to automatically synthesize executable CORBA applications. With Telelogic Rhapsody you can define CORBA constructs at the model level and connect these constructs to the logical model in a robust way.

Telelogic Rhapsody understands CORBA and automates the CORBA implementation for you. This allows the developer to graphically model the communication mechanisms and with a click of a button generate the complete IDL along with the application. Simply define components of your model to be either CORBA clients or CORBA servers and Telelogic Rhapsody will generate the proper interface in IDL format. In addition, Telelogic Rhapsody includes a package of predefined CORBA types. This package contains the basic CORBA IDL types, which you can assign to any attribute, operation return type, or argument that belongs to a CORBA interface. Telelogic Rhapsody understands the model to CORBA mapping so you don't have to. Telelogic Rhapsody enables you to use CORBA as an integral part of the implementation model, allowing you to link CORBA-domain constructs to the C++ domain.