The architecture and specifications described in the Common Object Request Broker Architecture™ and Specifications (CORBA®) book are aimed at software designers and developers who want to produce applications that comply with OMG® standards for the Object Request Broker (ORB). The benefit of compliance is, in general, to be able to produce interoperable applications that are based on distributed, interoperating objects.
The following information is a history of the revisions made to the Common Object Request Broker: Architecture and Specifications (CORBA) over the past several years.
You will find the following specifications here.
CORBA 1.0 (October 1991)
Included the CORBA Object model, Interface Definition Language™ (IDL™), and
the core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for dynamic
request management and invocation (DII) and Interface Repository. Included
a single language mapping for the C language.
CORBA 1.1 (February 1992)
This was the first widely published version of the CORBA specification. It
closed many ambiguities in the original specification; added interfaces
for the Basic Object Adapter and memory management; clarified the
Interface Repository, and clarified ambiguities in the object model.
CORBA 1.2 (December 1993)
Closed several ambiguities, especially in memory management and object
reference comparison.
CORBA 2.0 (August 1996)
First major overhaul kept the extant CORBA object model, and added several
major features:
- dynamic skeleton interface (mirror of dynamic invocation)
- initial reference resolver for client portability
- extensions to the Interface Repository
- “out of the box” interoperability architecture (GIOP, IIOP®, DCE CIOP)
- support for layered security and transaction services
- datatype extensions for COBOL, scientific processing, wide characters
- interworking with OLE2/COM
Included in this release were the Interoperability Protocol specification, interface repository improvements, initialization, and two IDL language mappings (C++ and Smalltalk).
CORBA 2.1 (August 1997)
Added additional security features (secure IIOP and IIOP over SSL), added
two language mappings (COBOL and Ada), included interoperability
revisions and IDL type extensions.
CORBA 2.2 (February 1998)
This version of CORBA includes the Server Portability enhancements (POA),
DCOM Interworking, and the IDL/JAVA language mapping specification.
CORBA 2.3 (June 1999)
This version of CORBA includes the following new and revised
specifications:
- COM/CORBA Part A and B (orbos/97-09-07), (orbos/97-09-06, 97-09-19)
- Portability IDL/Java
- Objects by value (orbos/98-01-18), (ptc/98-07-06)
- Java to IDL Language Mapping
- IDL to Java Language Mapping
- C++ Language Mapping
- Core and RTF reports (ptc/98-09-04), (ptc/98-07-05), (ptc/99-03-01, 99-03-02)
CORBA 2.4 (October 2000)
This version of CORBA includes the following specifications:
- Messaging specification (orbos/98-05-05)
- Core and 2.4 RTF (ptc/99-12-06), (ptc/99-12-07), (ptc/99-12-08)
- Interoperable Naming service (orbos/98-08-10)
- Interop 2K RTF report (interop/00-01-01)
- Naming FTF report (ptc/99-12-02, 99-12-03, 99-12-04)
- Notification service (formal/00-06-20)
- Minimum CORBA (orbos/98-08-04)
- Real-time CORBA (orbos/99-02-12)
CORBA 2.5 (September 2001)
This version of CORBA includes the following specifications:
- Fault Tolerant (ptc/00-04-04)
- Messaging (editorial changes)
- Portable Interceptors (ptc/01-03-04)
- Realtime CORBA (ptc/00-09-02)
- RTF outputs from CORBA Core, Interop, OTS, etc.
CORBA 2.6 (December 2001)
This version of CORBA includes the following specifications:
- Common Security (orbos/2000-08-04, ptc/01-03-02, ptc/01-06-09)
- Core RTF 12/2000 and Interop RTF 12/2000 (ptc/01-06-10, ptc/01-06-08, ptc/01-06-01)
CORBA 3.0 (July 2002)
The CORBA Core specification, v3.0 (formal/02-06-01) includes updates
based on output from the Core RTF (ptc/02-01-13, ptc/02-01-14, ptc/02-01-15),
the Interop RTF (ptc/02-01-14 ptc/02-01-15, ptc/02-01-18), and the Object
Reference Template (ptc/01-08-31, ptc/01-10-23, ptc/01-01-04). The CORBA
Component Model™ (CCM™), v3.0 (formal/02-06-65), released simultaneously as a
stand-alone specification, enables tighter integration with Java and other
component technologies, making it easier for programmers to use CORBA; its
initial release number of 3.0 signifies its conformance to this release of
CORBA and IIOP. Also with this release, Minimum CORBA and Real-time CORBA
(both added to CORBA Core in Release 2.4) become separate documents.
CORBA 3.0.1 (November 2002), CORBA 3.0.2 (December 2002), CORBA 3.0.3 (March 2004)
These versions contain minor editorial updates.
CORBA 3.1 (January 2008)
Reorganization of the CORBA specification took place in January 2008 with the 3.1 version of CORBA. The specification was divided into three separate documents.
Part I – Interfaces
Part II – Interoperability
Part III – Components
CORBA 3.1.1 (August 2011)
Another major event took place with version 3.1.1. This version was formally published by ISO as the 2012 edition standard: ISO/IEC 19500-1, 19500-2, and 19500-3.
CORBA 3.2 (November 2011)
This version is based on the outcome of the DDS4CCM and CCM Revision Task Forces.
CORBA 3.3 (November 2012)
This version of CORBA is also known as CORBA/ZIOP - please see http://www.omg.org/spec/ZIOP for older versions of this specification.