CORBA and DDS are complementary, they both offer a powerful infrastructure to build efficient distributed systems.
An in depth analysis of distributed applications reveals that canonical interactions between them are either service centric, where applications make queries and expect results, or information centric, where applications share information by publishing or reading it.
The service-centric type of interaction is supported by the request-reply communication paradigm whereas the information centric model is supported by the publish and subscribe communication paradigm. Each fundamental communication paradigm can be extended to cover both kinds of interactions, however communication efficiency, performance and scalability may suffer when it is used beyond its initial application scope. Application developers are often under duress to fill the gap, which can impact the overall system efficiency and increase applications’ complexity and maintainability.
CORBA a Service Centric Middleware
CORBA is a well established Object Oriented Middleware that covers both the request–reply and publish-subscribe communication styles. CORBA is not totally information centric, the unit of information exchange is either a message or an event. Messages and events have usually static and predefined structures that make them difficult to adapt to high level information models. Therefore, application development will have to take the responsibility to build up the high information model from the basic unit of data.
DDS an Information Centric Middleware
The Data Distribution Service (DDS), a new OMG specification, is totally information centric. Applications naturally share high level information models. This specification is MDA compliant and platform independent. DDS focuses on data instead of processing and services. It provides a rich set of features and quality of services that manage both real-time data dissemination and delivery, as well as data lifecycles.
CORBA and DDS are Complementary
CORBA and DDS are complementary, they both offer a powerful infrastructure to build efficient distributed systems. CORBA as a service oriented middleware with basic publish and subscribe capabilities is well suited for the application management and the implementation of application services. DDS as an information centric middleware is perfectly suited for sharing massive amounts of high level data structures and is extremely suited to providing the right information at the right time.
Related Technologies
CORBA | Real-Time CORBA | CORBA/e | MinimumCORBA | CORBA IDL | CORBA CCM | CORBA COS | Open Source CORBA
Related PrismTech OpenFusion CORBA Products
OpenFusion TAO | OpenFusion JacORB | OpenFusion CORBA Services | OpenFusion RTOrb Java Edition | OpenFusion RTOrb Ada Edition | OpenFusion e*ORB
