An overview of the real-time CORBA specification

A growing class of realtime systems require end-to-end support for various quality-of-service (QoS) aspects, including bandwidth, latency, jitter, and dependability. Applications include command and control, manufacturing process control, videoconferencing, large-scale distributed interactive simulation, and test-beam data acquisition. These systems require support for stringent QoS requirements. To meet this challenge, developers are turning to distributed object computing middleware, such as the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, an Object Management Group (OMG) industry standard. In complex real-time systems, DOC middleware resides between applications and the underlying operating systems, protocol stacks, and hardware. CORBA helps decrease the cycle time and effort required to develop high-quality systems by composing applications using reusable software component services rather than building them entirely from scratch. The Real-Time CORBA specification includes features to manage CPU, network, and memory resources. This article describes the key Real-Time CORBA features that the authors feel are the most relevant to researchers and developers of distributed real-time and embedded systems.