Reflective object-oriented distributed system for heterogeneous multimedia environments

In this paper, object-oriented techniques and concepts (e.g. object migration, inheritance, delegation) and reflection are applied to the design of a distributed system called the Reflective Object-oriented Distributed System (RODS). RODS hides object distribution and underlying platform heterogeneity to simplify the development of distributed multimedia applications. RODS has two major components: The Flexible Multimedia Object Adaptor (FMOA) and the Reflective Object Request Broker (RORB). The FMOA is an application framework of classes to facilitate the construction of distributed multimedia applications. The RORB is a CORBA Object Request Broker that integrates additional features such as smart proxies, delegation, migration, and sharing. By utilizing a reflective model, RORB allows the application programmer and the system to dynamically modify distributed object management policies.