ObjectWire - A Framework-based Platform for Distributed Object-Oriented Applications

Distributed computing introduces a vast amount of additional complexity in contrast to local computing. Distributed application engineers need support in dealing with this complexity in terms of high-level easy-to-use interfaces and services. Therefore standardization efforts for object-based distributed computing like CORBA concentrate on providing mechanisms for transparent remote object access (RPC) and on specifying high-level interfaces for required services. The specification of high-level interfaces enables mainly two things: (1) a certain amount of transparency, which shields programmers from low-level communication interfaces and (2) the standardization of some common interfaces to software services, which encourages vendors to code to these standardized interfaces instead of creating island solutions (which is important for creating a component market). It is important to note that the specification of high-level interfaces does not provide interoperability per se. It is also important to agree on low-level wire protocols, at least between different platforms (like IIOP for CORBA), and to provide bridges for protocol translations.