Multi-Technology Distributed Objects and their Integration

Research on software objects, components, middleware, and component-based applications concerns among others ActiveX controls, JavaBeans (JBs), the Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), and how they can interoperate with each other. Is their interoperation possible? Which elements are responsible for the software objects’ incompatibility? Is compatibility a responsibility of the objects or of their underlying architectures? In this article we discuss object compatibility problems by outlining three basic middleware remoting technologies: the OMG’s Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Microsoft’s Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), and Sun’s Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI), discussing the basic incompatibility points, and overviewing the basic strategies for bridging the gap between CORBA, DCOM, and RMI.