0.3 Context of CORBA

• Object Request Broker, which enables objects to transparently make and receive requests and responses in a distributed environment. It is the foundation for building applications from distributed objects and for interoperability between applications in hetero- and homogeneous environments. The architecture and specifications of the Object Request Broker are described in this manual.
• Object Services, a collection of services (interfaces and objects) that support basic functions for using and implementing objects. Services are necessary to construct any distributed application and are always independent of application domains. For example, the Life Cycle Service defines conventions for creating, deleting, copying, and moving objects; it does not dictate how the objects are implemented in an application. Specifications for Object Services are contained in CORBAservices: Common Object Services Specification.
• Common Facilities, a collection of services that many applications may share, but which are not as fundamental as the Object Services. For instance, a system management or electronic mail facility could be classified as a common facility. Information about Common Facilities will be contained in CORBAfacilities: Common Facilities Architecture.
• Application Objects, which are products of a single vendor on in-house development group which controls their interfaces. Application Objects correspond to the traditional notion of applications, so they are not standardized by OMG. Instead, Application Objects constitute the uppermost layer of the Reference Model.