Treffer: A CORBA Extension for Intelligent Software Environments

We describe the implementation of a technology that achieves system-wide properties in large software systems by controlling and modifying intercomponent communications. Traditional component-based applications intermix the code for component functionality with support for systematic properties. This produces non-reusable components and inflexible systems. The Object Infrastructure Framework (OIF) separates systematic properties from functional code and provides a mechanism for weaving them together with functional components. This allows a much richer variety of component reuse and system evolution. Key elements of this technology include intercepting inter-component communications with discrete, dynamically configurable “injectors, ” annotating communications and processes with additional meta-information, and a highlevel, declarative specification language for describing the mapping between desired system properties and services that achieve these properties. We have implemented these ideas in a CORBA/Java framework for distributed computing, and are currently applying them to a distributed system for the analysis of aerospace design (wind-tunnel, and CFD) data.