Title: | The Open Group tackles CORBA architecture's interoperability. |
Subject(s): | |
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Abstract: | Reports on the initiative of the Object Management Group (OMG) and the Open Group for the interoperability of Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). Efforts to address common complaints about the CORBA distributed software architecture; Certification program of the Open Group; Price of CORBA certification test suite. |
AN: | 1920342 |
ISSN: | 0199-6649 |
Database: | Academic Search Elite |
Object request brokers
THE OPEN GROUP next week will make the case for its continued relevance in the open-systems world, announcing an effort to bring interoperability to the somewhat scattered CORBA object specification market.
Along with the CORBA architecture's originator, the Object Management Group (OMG), the Open Group will administer branding and certification programs for object request brokers (ORBs), as well as application modeling tools and other software based on CORBA specifications.
The two groups will field requests for mediation in cases of incompatibility among branded products. The OMG will handle any mediation.
The joint Open Group and OMG effort, several years in formation, promises to address a chronic complaint about the CORBA distributed software architecture -- that because this set of standards lacks reference implementations, no two vendors' CORBA products are guaranteed to work together.
So far, Fujitsu's ORB and several open-source ORBs have passed the requisite certification tests, according to Open Group officials.
Recognizing the role of open-source developers, the Open Group has pulled together a $1 million fund to assist such operations in meeting the costs of certification, according to Steve Zalewski, the vice president of marketing at the Open Group.
The Open Group handles Unix branding and certification, and it also works on security, management, architecture, mobile network computing, application integration, and collaborations with other consortia.
One analyst said the program could lend new pertinence to both groups' roles in the industry.
"Differences [among implementations] are not just bits of friction, they're deal breakers," said Eric Brown, an analyst at Forrester Research, a market research company in Cambridge, Mass.
The CORBA certification test suite is priced at $10,000 to $20,000 for a single workstation license, and at $80,000 for a corporate license.
The Open Group, in Menlo Park, Calif., can be reached at www.opengroup.org.
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By Ted Smalley Bowen