Object Adapter
Also built into the architecture is the Object Adapter, which is the main way a (server-side)
object implementation accesses services provided by the ORB. An Object Adapter is
responsible for the registration of object implementations, generation and interpretation
of object references, static and dynamic method invocation, object and implementation
activation and deactivation, and security coordination. CORBA requires a standard adapter
known as the Basic Object Adapter.
In 1999, the OMG announced release 3 of CORBA, which adds firewall standards for
communicating over the Internet, quality of service parameters, and CORBAcomponents.
CORBAcomponents allow programmers to activate fundamental services at a higher level
and was intended as a vendor-neutral, language-independent, component middleware, but
the OMG has now embraced Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), a middle-tier specification that
allows only Java as a programming language in the middle tier (see Section 29.9). In the
literature, CORBA 2 generally refers to CORBA interoperability and the IIOP protocol, and
CORBA 3 refers to the CORBA Component Model. There are many vendors of CORBA
ORBs on the market, with IONA’s Orbix and Inprise’s Visibroker being popular examples.