PocoCapsule/CORBA

-- superior than CCM, simpler than socket

Copyright© 2006 by Pocomatic Software. All Rights Reserved.

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Sept. 21, 2006

CORBA is usually portrayed as a “highend” (read hard to learn and use) technology, and the CORBA Component Model (CCM) further raises its entry barrier and increases its application development difficulties. Even dedicated CCM (as well as LwCCM and D&C) advocators mostly admit its steep learning curve and complexities and do not recommend to use it without additional heavy tooling (although the "tools will simplify all" excuse didn't bode well either for EJB pre-3.x).

As an immediate utilization of its customizability, PocoCapsule comes with an add-on package, the PocoCapsule/CORBA. This package transforms the underlying IoC container, such as Spring Framework, into a full fledged CORBA application deployment framework. This framework significantly shortens the learning curve of CORBA and reduces the complexities of CORBA application developments that involves various advanced CORBA features (see the Hello example), such as:

• Configuring POA policies and server models.

• Object composites and facets.

• Defining corbaloc URLs for arbitrary objects with user specified URIs.

• Seamlessly integrating with OMG Event/Notification service (see POEM vs. EVIL).

These features are challenging for experienced CORBA/CCM application developers and even challenging for CCM vendors. With the PocoCapsule/CORBA, they become easy and straightforward even for CORBA novices or for business logic developers who do not want to be diverted by underlying system logic details. Besides, PocoCapsule/CORBA also supports:

• Wiring up business logic beans using dependency injection (DI) or IoC.

• Business logic beans are non-intrusive plain old Java or C++ objects.

• A sample and intuitive deployment schema that can easily be understood, created and maintained without tooling.

• A customizable schema allowing user to further tailor it into a desirable expression or abstraction level.

• An open architecture that allows other services (such as transaction and security) and vendor specific POA policies to be integrated seamlessly.

PocoCapsule/CORBA significantly lowers the entry barrier of CORBA technology without sacrificing, but rather strengthening its features and productivity. The learning curve of PocoCapsule/CORBA is not only shorter than CCM, but also shorter than plain old CORBA, and even shorter than socket API. As some of CORBA advanced but hard to use features become easily accessible, PocoCapsule/CORBA virtually extends the feasible feature set of the underlying CORBA implementation to average business logic developers.

With its low entry barrier, superior features, non-intrusiveness and flexible customizability, PocoCapsule/CORBA is an ideal framework for enterprises to build mission-critical CORBA applications in a starting small and thinking big incremental approach.

More detailed descriptions of PocoCapsule/CORBA can be found in the PocoCapsule Developer Guide.

The evaluation version of PocoCapsule/CORBA can be downloaded from Pocomatic Software.