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ECM - Extensible Container Model | |
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The Extensible Container ModelOverviewThe Extensible Container Model (ECM) is a specification and a reference implementation, originally produced in the IST COACH project, which aim at enhancing the OMG's CORBA Component Model specification to provide a systematic and automated process for the definition of domain specific container models and the generation of the corresponding container runtimes. With the ECM, application architects may define their specific container models by simply assembling a set of packaged services. It is intended that such services are highly reusable software components, potentially bought from third-party vendors and certainly exploited in many products. It is noteworthy that the ECM is (like CORBA) language and platform independent. Therefore a service package contains implementations for many languages (C++, Java, etc.) and many platforms (Linux, Windows, etc.). The generated container runtime can then be adapted to the constraints of the target platform. SpecificationThe ECM mainly consists of two specifications: the Service Model specification and the Extensible Container Architecture (ECA) specification. The Service Model specification mainly copes with the definition, packaging and deployment of the service from the CCM component model point of view. In this model, a service consists of:
Note that the Service Model also specifies the packaged format of services and its integration with the CCM component model. The Extensible Container Architecture (ECA) mainly copes with the implementation of services and aims at ensuring the portability of the compiled code. For that purpose, it specifies the Component Oriented Portable Interceptor (COPI) specification and the Service Management specification. The COPI specification is the key for the portable implementation of policies and is inspired from the CORBA Portable Interceptor specification. The Service Management specification is the key for the portable integration of the service implementation within the runtime infrastructure. It defines how the service's artifacts are initialized and registered to the runtime. The lastest ECM specification is the 1.0. You can find it here. Reference ImplementationThe ECM-RI is the reference implementation of the ECM specification, but also of the standard CCM container model. The ECM-RI is free (see the license agreement) and Open Source. The latest ECM-RI release is the 0.2.0. You can find it here.
The ECM-RI has the following dependencies:
If you want to quickly go into the ECM-RI, then go to the Quick Start. Warning: the ECM is still under development. See how to contribute and the workplan. Java and all Java-based trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of SUN Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. CORBA, CCM are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Object Management Group (OMG) in the U.S. and other countries. |
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