Connectors for CORBA Components

Abstract

To enable integration of heterogeneous components, the description of offered interfaces (services offered by the component to its environment) of the components is not always sufficient. To support complex assemblies, two additional concepts have to be handled: required interfaces (services offered by the environment to the component) and connectors (mechanisms needed to interconnect components). CCM (CORBA Component Model) has recently been proposed as a component model on top of CORBA middleware: it integrates the concept of required interfaces but not yet the concept of connectors. Our proposal is to add this concept to CCM. We illustrate it with different varieties of connectors, like interface adaptors and mediators integrating mechanisms such as load balancing and fault tolerance.