Douglas Schmidt is an associate professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of California, Irvine. Schmidt received his PhD in computer science at the University of California, Irvine in 1994. Nanbor Wang is a research staff member and PhD candidate at Washington University, St. Louis. He received his MS in computer science from Washington University in 1997. Vishal Kachroo is a graduate student at Washington University, St. Louis.
Objects can be remote or collocated relative to the client.
As Figure 1a shows in the main text, the underlying ORB components transparently transmit remote-operation requests from client to object. Each object is identified by an object reference, which specifies one or more paths through which a client can access an object on a server. An object ID associates an object with its implementation or servant and is unique within the scope of an object adapter. Over its lifetime, one or more servants can implement an object's interface. A client never interacts with servants directly, but always through objects identified by object references.