[Enterprise Extensions only]

CORBA object services

CORBA object services interoperate by delivering context information, with messages, that establishes service state and other parameters. Some older ORBs do not support the passing of such context, or use proprietary context data that cannot interoperate with another server.

Conversely, because a service context is not part of the message normally seen at the programmer's level, solutions that involve a break in the normal flow of a message do not automatically propagate a service context. Such solutions include wrapper classes or messages manually propagated across coexistent ORBs. If context propagation is required under such circumstances it must be explicitly or manually managed in the code. If available, request interceptors provide a useful way to propogate contexts.

Naming service
For CORBA applications, WebSphere supports the CORBA CosNaming service, which binds CORBA objects to a public name. Clients are bootstrapped according to the CORBA programming model, CORBA-compliant IORs must be obtained, and server objects must be bound into the CORBA CosNaming service. (For CORBA client access to Enterprise JavaBeans, the EJB home must be bound into the CORBA CosNaming service.)

For more information about the naming service, see The naming service.

Transaction service
WebSphere supports the Enterprise JavaBean object transaction service (OTS). WebSphere follows the CORBA transaction service specification for propagating transaction contexts, and forwards the transaction context to the server. For interoperation with 3rd-party ORBs, incoming contexts are honored and outgoing transaction contexts are generated as appropriate.

For more information about the transaction service, see The transaction service.

Security service
The CORBA specification does not yet define an accepted interoperable security standard.

The WebSphere C++ CORBA SDK does not support a Security Service. Therefore, a C++ CORBA client, developed using this SDK, cannot authenticate to a secure WebSphere EJB server (so can only access objects which are configured to allow unauthenticated users to call them).

When using CORBA interoperation between WebSphere and a 3rd-party ORB, a security context can flow, although it may be ignored. You can use a coexistent ORB to pass a security context manually, though it is your responsibility to pass relevant context information.

For more information about the security service, see The security service.