Programming ColdFusion MX, 2nd Edition

Calling CORBA Objects

The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is a specification put forth by the Object Management Group (OMG) for creating platform-neutral distributed software objects. CORBA objects can be written using any number of languages and are supported only on the Windows and Unix versions of ColdFusion. ColdFusion supports CORBA Version 2.3.

ColdFusion uses the cfobject tag to access CORBA objects via a piece of middleware called an Object Request Broker (ORB). Because an ORB is required to access CORBA objects, ColdFusion comes bundled with the Borland VisiBroker 4.5 ORB Java libraries. Because ColdFusion uses a connector to load the ORB, it is possible to use third-party ORBs with ColdFusion, provided they come with a ColdFusion-specific connector. You can contact Macromedia directly for connectors for several of the more popular ORB providers.

Before you can begin using CORBA with ColdFusion, you’ll need to register and configure your ORB connector with the ColdFusion Administrator. This is true for third party ORB connectors as well as the VisiBroker ORB connector included with ColdFusion. For step-by-step instructions on registering and configuring an ORB connector, see the Administering and Configuring ColdFusion MX book that is included with the ColdFusion documentation.

Once your connector has been configured and registered, you are ready to begin using CORBA with ColdFusion. All CORBA connectivity is handled via the cfobject tag or the CreateObject( ...