Abstract: A serialized sequence of data for transmitting a set of data objects. The sequence comprises a plurality of value holders and a key indicating the number of value holders in the sequence. Each value holder comprises the name of the data type and a data object. The data types include fixed length and variable length data types. The value holders containing fixed length data types have no ending tag. The variable length data types comprise strings and forms. The value holders containing strings end with a special character or a special set of characters. The value holders containing a form data type incorporate a plurality of nested value holders contained within the form value holder. The form value holder comprises a form key indicating the number of value holders contained within the form value holder and a plurality of value holders nested within the form value holder.

Abstract: To perform a distributed transaction in a CORBA environment, OTS (the CORBA Transaction Service) defines a process called “control object interpositioning”. It must be carried out on the server side to ensure transaction integrity. However, for middle-tier servers (servers that do not access a database directly) this process is not necessary. The control object can be simply passed through. However, the two propagation methods of OTS do not provide a good way to take advantage of this fact. The present invention defines a model by which the deployment nature of the server can be specified. Middle-tier or database-tier can be defined in a deployment descriptor file, which is read in deployment time by the server process. The present invention will optimize the middle-tier servers by bypassing the control object interpositioning process and handing the control object directly to the next tier, bringing noticeable performance gains for an n-tiered system.

Abstract: The present invention extends the programming model of OTS by providing a unique model that offers both flexibility and ease of use. This model separates the transactional behavior of CORBA method from the IDL interface. The transactional behavior of the CORBA method is specified in a deployment descriptor file. Each method is associated with a transactional policy. The server reads the policies of the methods during deployment time and makes decisions of making the method transactional based on the policy. Changing the transactional policy of a method is as easy as modifying the deployment descriptor and redeploying the server. If either of the two usage models that OTS offers is used, making a method transactional means that the IDL interface has to change, causing all the software components in the system to re-compile. With the present invention, such a change can be accomplished without need for such recompilation.