CORBA for Not Yet Techies

"Computer Careers: High Tech Jobs To Make the Internet Your Own Personal Network"

by Richard Stooker, President Info Ring Press and author of Secrets of Changing to a Computer Career

The future of computers and computer careers is networking, especially that grand network of networks, is the Internet. CORBA is a part of that.

CORBA (Common Broker Request Architecture) is a special application of networks. CORBA creates more computers careers for techies.

Crunching numbers and other data are secondary functions of computers in the 3^rd millennium – they are communication tools linking human beings as we’ve never been linked before. And we must like it, because the trend is accelerating and won’t stop. Basically, no matter how smart one computer is, hook up another computer to it, and they’re both now four times as smart. CORBA helps that process.

When all computers are hooked up to make full use of the Internet, how smart will we be?

However, even now, most computers stand alone. Whether they are giant old mainframes with ancient legacy software or your individual PC.

That’s changing, but there are technical obstacles.

Not all computers are alike, not at all. There are many different types, brands, operating systems, versions of software etc. Historically, these have excluded each other. We know that a Unix program will not operate under Windows. So, how can they operate together as a network.

The info tech industry is working on this problem from many angles.

One solution is CORBA

Yes, that’s quite a mouthful. Here’s the official explanation of what CORBA is all about, straight from the software consortium that designed it, the Object Management Group.

"CORBA the Object Management Group's answer to the need for interoperability among the rapidly proliferating number of hardware and software products available today. Simply stated, Common Object Request Broker Architecture allows applications to communicate with one another no matter where they are located or who has designed them."

That "interoperability" is a key word for CORBA - Common Object Request Broker Architecture

Common Object Request Broker Architecture, or CORBA, was designed to work with data, software etc (all "objects" in object oriented programming) of all sizes, shapes, colors and – not least in these days when it seems that the info tech development world consists of Microsoft at war with everybody else – brand names.

It’s not difficult for a software program to deal with objects on one computer or objects which can be found somewhere on the network to which the program is installed. Finding and working with data that may be stored in an otherwise incompatible and conflicting database software program installed on an otherwise incompatible and conflicting type of computer with an otherwise incompatible and conflicting operating system – that’s a horse of another color. But that’s what Common Object Request Broker Architecture CORBA is designed to do.

The Object Management Group (OMG) was founded in 1989 and now consisted of over 800 separate software development companies. Some folks say that they are part of the "war" against Microsoft. According to their website, Microsoft is a member. This wouldn’t be important to your understanding , except that Microsoft is pushing a competing technology, DCOM.

Their slogan is:

CORBA should be the "middleware that’s everywhere."

"Middleware" means of course that it is designed to be the "middleman" or go-between the different computers, operating systems and applications.

CORBA - Page 2

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