Remote Method Invocation (RMI) over Internet Inter-Orb Protocol (IIOP) delivers Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) compliant distributed computing capabilities to the JavaTM 2 platform and to the Java Development Kit (JDKTM) 1.1. RMI over IIOP was developed by Sun and IBM. The joint work by Sun and IBM to implement Object Management Group (OMG) standards demonstrates the spirit of collaboration that continually moves the Java platform forward.
RMI over IIOP combines the best features of RMI with the best features of CORBA. Like RMI, RMI over IIOP speeds distributed application development by allowing developers to work completely in the Java programming language. When using RMI over IIOP to produce Java technology-based distributed applications, there is no separate Interface Definition Language (IDL) or mapping to learn. Like RMI, RMI over IIOP provides flexibility by allowing developers to pass any serializable Java object (Objects By Value) between application components. Like CORBA, RMI over IIOP is based on open standards defined with the participation of hundreds of vendors and users in the Object Management Group. Like CORBA, RMI over IIOP uses IIOP as its communication protocol. IIOP eases legacy application and platform integration by allowing application components written in C++, Smalltalk, and other CORBA supported languages to communicate with components running on the Java platform.