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2.7.1 The Object Management Architecture

   The OMG, a consortium of object vendors is an important standardization 
   group with over 590 members.  It is the only standardization group 
   defining standards for objects.  They have been working since 1989 to 
   define an open object infrastructure.  The architecture that was defined 
   by OMG is called Object Management Architecture (OMA) as shown in 
   Figure 38. 

   This chapter describes the basic architecture of the Object Request Broker 
   (CORBA), the Object Services, and the Common Facilities as shown in 
   Figure 38.  CORBA is important for OpenDoc for the following reasons: 

   1.  OpenDoc parts are CORBA-compliant objects. 

   2.  OpenDoc itself has been adopted by the OMG as part of the CORBA 
       standard itself. 

   3.  The services provided by CORBA give a good indication about what will 
       be in future versions of OpenDoc. 



 


                                              



 
   Figure 38. Object Management Architecture 

   The real heart of the CORBA architecture is the standardization of object 
   interfaces.  The language by which this is done is called IDL, Interface 
   Definition Language.  One of the reasons CORBA is so successful is the 
   fact that the OMG is defining all the services and interfaces by this IDL. 
   The IDL is a subset of C++ with some additional features. One example is 
   "Sample IDL File Generated by Partmeister" in topic 2.9.1.  It supports 
   C++ pragmas and preprocessing.  The OMG is separating clearly the 
   interfaces from the implementation.  The OMG doesn't care about the 
   implementation.  These are left to the vendors.  This simplifies the 
   process to agree on standards. 

   Let's take a very short look at the whole architecture and see how OpenDoc 
   fits into this structure. 

Subtopics:

   2.7.1.1 Object Request Broker
   2.7.1.2 COSS Services

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