Chapter 8 - CORBA and the Internet

Summary

Use of the Internet has exploded since the first Web servers and browsers were introduced to the public in 1993. Everyone is producing Webenabled versions of their applications. Companies are using the Web to provide services to their clients and employees. Almost every new project ends up having some Web component. Applications that make use of distributed objects are not unique in this respect; in fact, technologies like CORBA that provide the “universal object bus” are a good marriage with Web technologies that provide the “universal user interface.”

In this chapter, we take a look at distributed object architectures for the Internet. How to integrate CORBA with Web technologies and the interaction of CORBA with Internet security mechanisms. We will then also look at upcoming standards and how these can be integrated with CORBA—specifically, the use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the next generation of HTTP (HTTP-NG).

Architectures

Two types of CORBA-based architectures exist for the Web. The first is when your applications speak IIOP over the Internet: the client application can communicate directly with your CORBA objects. The second is an architecture in which a gateway is built that translates from the standard Web protocols to CORBA: an indirect communication exists between the client application and the CORBA objects.

Your decision on which architecture to implement will depend on various factors. How much influence do you have over the end user's environment?