COM and CORBA Side by Side: Architectures, Strategies, and Implementations

For today's distributed computing, the two biggest players are undoubtedly Microsoft DCOM and OMG CORBA. Evaluating which standard is best for your organization is the main objective of COM and CORBA Side by Side. Written for the IS manager or designer planning for distributed computing, this book provides a thorough introduction to these two difficult technologies while showing the strengths of each and even ways to let COM and CORBA work together on the enterprise.

The major strength of this book is its parallel presentation of key concepts of distributed computing using both DCOM and CORBA. The author shows how objects work under each standard and how to program with them using C++, Java, and Visual Basic (for DCOM only). (Short, useful code excerpts show the different programming techniques with each standard.) He explains how distributed computing works in general as well as the specifics and advantages of DCOM and CORBA for today's enterprise. (The basic differences remain--Microsoft is a proprietary standard with great development tools and little cross-platform support while CORBA is a strong cross-platform option with fewer options for development tools.) Throughout this book, the author offers several assessment guides for choosing which standard to adopt for your organization based on its needs.

Actually, DCOM and CORBA have a lot in common, judging by the book's sections on transactions, component support, and server-side processing. (Later sections look at the possibility of bridging both DCOM and CORBA using proprietary tools.) It's clear that both DCOM and CORBA will be around for the foreseeable future, and this intelligent and richly presented tutorial can help any organization choose the best fit. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Distributed object basics, n-tiered architectures, DCOM and CORBA fundamentals, IDL, COM programming in C++/Visual Basic/Java, CORBA programming in C++/Java, creating and destroying objects, server-side DCOM and CORBA, assessment strategies, legacy systems, wrappers and gateways, development tools, transactions and MTS/OTS, security, desktop and Internet clients, COM/CORBA bridging, Microsoft JVM, commercial bridging solutions, and enterprise application servers.