Some common CORBA terminology

The following terms are used throughout this information segment:
CORBA
The Common Object Request Broker Architecture. An architecture and a specification for distributed, object-oriented, computing.
GIOP
The General Inter-Orb Protocol. The CORBA data representation specification and interoperability protocol. It defines how different ORBs communicate; it does not define which transport protocol to use.
IDL
Interface Definition Language. A definition language that is used in CORBA to describe the characteristics and behavior of a kind of object, including the operations that can be performed on it.
IIOP
The Internet Inter-Orb Protocol. Defines how to send GIOP messages over a TCP/IP transport layer. IIOP is GIOP over TCP/IP.
Interface
Describes the characteristics and behavior of a kind of object, including the operations that can be performed on those objects. This maps to a Java™ class. In CORBA terminology, the client request specifies, in IDL, an interface that defines the server object.
IOR
Interoperable Object Reference. A “stringified” reference to a remote CORBA object. It is published by the server ORB. The client application must have access to the IOR at runtime. The client ORB can deconstruct the IOR to determine (among other things) the location of the remote ORB and object, the maximum version of GIOP supported by the remote ORB, and any relevant CORBA services supported by the remote ORB.
Module
An IDL packaging construct containing interfaces. This maps to a Java package.
OMG
The Object Management Group. The consortium of software organizations that has defined the CORBA architecture.
Operation
An action that can be performed on an object. This maps to a Java method. In CORBA terminology, the client requests an operation, defined in IDL, that is mapped to a method on the server object.
ORB
The Object Request Broker. A CORBA system component that acts as an intermediary between the client and server applications. Both client and server platforms require an ORB; each is tailored for a specific environment, but supports common CORBA protocols and IDL.
RMI-IIOP
The Remote Method Invocation (RMI) over IIOP specification and protocol. The specification defines how to make the Java-specific RMI application architecture inter-operate, using CORBA protocols. This is the communication protocol used by enterprise beans.
Skeleton
A piece of code generated by the server IDL compiler. It is used by the server ORB to parse a message into a method call on a local (to the server) object.
Stub or proxy
A piece of code generated by the client IDL or RMI compiler. It is used by the client application to invoke methods on the remote object. The stub class calls methods on the client ORB, which in turn sends remote method requests to the server ORB. The stub class must be generated for the specific client ORB it is to be used with. If you use client ORBs from different vendors, you should ensure that you are using client-side stubs generated using the tools provided with the correct client ORB.
Tie
A piece of code generated by the RMI compiler. It is used by the server ORB to parse a message into a method call on a local (to the server) object.