ORBs in the midst: studying a new species of CASE integration mechanism

The Common Object Request Broker (ORB) Architecture (CORBA) is generally described as foundational technology for achieving interoperability among applications on distributed, heterogeneous platforms. If widely adopted, CORBA may have a profound impact on the computer-aided software engineering (CASE) marketplace. However before advocating CORBA, it is important to establish realistic expectations about the technology, and to develop a sound understanding of it in the context of other more mature technologies. The paper reflects our initial attempts at understanding the implications of CORBA on CASE environments. We first provide a high-level description of CORBA, focusing on features relevant to CASE environments. We then describe our initial experiences in benchmarking the performance of commercial implementations of CORBA, and comparing the results to more mature technologies such as remote procedure call (RPC). Taken together the context description and preliminary benchmarks provide an indication of the maturity and relevance of CORBA to CASE