The Open Group has introduced a brand program in support of the Object Management Group (OMG) CORBA 2.1 Specification. This is an opportunity for The Open Group and leading ORB suppliers to work together to build on CORBA momentum.

Introduction

The Open Group is the premier, industry supplier of open systems test suites and binding conformance guarantees. Successful Brand programs include XPG4 Base/95, CDE, Security and UNIX. The Open Group operates the only commercially viable test and brand program with 25 suppliers declaring over 1,500 branded products. IT consumers have mandated over $23+ Billion worth of Branded products in RFPs and bids. OMG has selected The Open Group as the logical choice to implement a CORBA 2.1 Brand Program.

The Open Group portfolio of open systems test suites includes: XPG4, UNIX, CDE, Network Computer, XNFS, XTI/Sockets, X11 and Motif. Open Group test tools are essential for proper development and maintenance of standards-based products, ensuring conformance of products to industry-standard APIs, application portability and interoperability. In-depth testing identifies defects at the earliest possible point in the development cycle, saving costs in development and quality assurance in the field. The real benefit of The Open Group test tools to suppliers is accelerated time-to-market of registered product.

Those ORB vendors who successfully register conformant products have the benefit of displaying the trademark that signifies their guarantee of conformance. Consumers of object technology can use the CORBA brand as a powerful procurement device.

An important supplement to the CORBA brand program is an interoperability assurance process whereby users of registered products have recourse for addressing interoperability problems between multiple vendors. The Open Group provides a forum for conciliation and, if necessary, mediation for problem resolution.

The VSJOrb Test Suite

In the CORBA model an application program operates in a distributed environment, composed of client programs and server objects cooperating through the medium of an Object Request Broker (ORB). VSJOrb tests products that provide this ORB functionality for conformance with the CORBA specification.

VSJOrb verifies the functionality offered by an ORB to both clients and objects in order to facilitate three important areas of CORBA application portability:

• An ORB allows CORBA-conforming clients to be built and executed
• An ORB allows CORBA-conforming objects to be built and, when accessed by a client, executed
• An ORB will interoperate with other conforming ORBs, allowing clients to transparently access objects in a multi-vendor, multi-ORB environment

Without VSJOrb, most ORBs offer CORBA defined capabilities, however, with lots of variation in their interfaces and functionality. Hence clients and objects need to be ported in order to use CORBA functionality on different ORBs. VSJOrb ensures consistent interfaces and functionality for CORBA-defined ORB features. Thus, applications can use these features without change across CORBA-conforming ORB implementations.

VSJOrb, like CORBA, focuses on interfaces and functionality rather than implementation. Thus ORB developers retain the flexibility to optimize and differentiate their ORBs for performance, operating environment, marketplace, etc., while at the same time providing a common interface to application clients and objects.

VSJOrb is designed for two primary uses:

VSJOrb tests the following CORBA functional areas, divided into five basic groups:

VSJOrb verifies the functionality of version 2.1 of the CORBA specification and covers the following CORBA requirements:

Other areas of CORBA currently outside the scope of VSJOrb are:

In some areas test coverage is limited by testability limitations in the requirements defined by the specification. For example operations which are defined as freeing memory for a data object cannot be definitively tested since the memory allocation mechanism used is not defined in the specification and there can be no general way of observing whether memory has actually been freed.

JETPack is implemented on both UNIX and Windows NT systems, facilitating the use of VSJOrb in both these environments.

VSJOrb is designed to operate on systems compliant to the X/Open XPG3 and XPG4 specifications (e.g. most UNIX-based systems) and on Windows NT. A Windows NT system must also provide the MKS Toolkit. . A Java compiler and a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) must be provided. A C++ compiler must also be supplied in order to build certain components of the test suite

VSJOrb testing is initially performed using a single ORB and a single host system. Interoperability testing includes ORBs on multiple systems across a TCP/IP network.

VSJOrb can be used to test ORB interoperability in two ways:

• Passively -- VSJOrb contains a proxy server that passively monitors IOP messages for correct generation and response
• Actively - the VSJOrb proxy can manipulate IOP messages to cause exceptions and determine if those exceptions are correct.

A number of VSJOrb features are of particular use in troubleshooting conformance problems during development and in regression testing:

The VSJOrb User’s Guide contains information on troubleshooting common conformance issues and the VSJOrb Programmer’s Guide contains information on the structure and implementation of the test suite to assist programmer’s needing to extend or enhance VSJOrb - for example to test implementation specific features.

The Open Brand

Open Group product registration is the process by which the vendor certifies that their product complies with the CORBA 2.1 specification as defined by the Product Standard.

The Open Brand Program is built around the right to use certain trademarks, with trademark law as its legal basis. Once a product is shown to comply with the CORBA 2.1 specification, and the vendor has entered into a trademark License with The Open Group, the vendor is entitled to use the trademarks in relation to that product. That right continues for as long as the product remains compliant and registered in the Directory of Branded Products (X/Open Doc. No. X951).

Related Development

The Open Group is exploring new functionality and expansion of its CORBA test suites including testing of the Portable Object Adapter (POA), IIOP V1.1 features and facilities and services. Contact The Open Group for information on how to participate in this planning and development.

The Next Step