COM/DCOM

Partof
Project
Presentation
(Concept Outline)

1
Component Object
Model (COM) and
DCOM

2
Overview

 History of COM
 Introduction to the COM Specification
 DCOM Technical Overview
 Load balancing
 Microsoft Transaction Server
 Monikers
 DCOM vs CORBA
 Problems and the future of COM

3
 The Evolution of COM

Object Linking and

Embedding (OLE1)
Object Model (OLE2) (COM
standard)
ActiveX (Internet applications)

Distributed interNet
4
Applications (COM+)
5
COM Specification
Foundations

 Reusable component
objects
 Binary standard for
interoperability
 “True” system object model

 Provides distributed
capabilities

6
Object Interoperability

 Stable versioning
 Rapid object interaction

 Location transparency

 Language independence

7
“True” System Object
Model

 Globally unique identifiers

(GUID)
 Reusability and inheritance

 Single programming model

 Life-cycle encapsulation

 Object-level security

8
Reusability Mechanisms

 Containment/Delegation

 Aggregation

9
10
11
Objects and Interfaces

12
13
Interfaces

 An interface is a named table of

function pointers (methods)
 An interface is not a class
 An interface is not a COM
component
 COM clients only interact with
pointers to interfaces
 COM components can
implement multiple interfaces
 Interfaces are strongly typed
 Interfaces are immutable

14
Object Creation and
Access

IUnknown and QueryInterface

15
Object Creation API

 CoCreateInstanceEx : creates a single uninitialized

object associated with the given CLSID on a
specified remote machine.
 CoCreateInstanceEx makes it possible to specify
an array of structures, each pointing to an interface
identifier (IID) on input, and, on return, containing (if
available) a pointer to the requested interface and
the return value of the QueryInterface call for that
interface. This permits fewer round trips between
machines.
 The CoCreateInstanceEx helper function
encapsulates three calls: first, to
CoGetClassObject to connect to the class object
associated with the specified CLSID, specifying the
machine location of the class; second, to
IClassFactory::CreateInstance to create an
uninitialized instance, and finally, to
IClassFactory::Release, to release the class
object.
16
Connectable Objects and
Multicasting
 Connection point implementation
using Advise()
HRESULT Advise(
IUnknown *pUnk , //Pointer to the client’s advise sink
DWORD *pdwCookie //Pointer to the connection point
identifier used by Unadvise );

17
18
 DCOM Architecture

COM COM
Client Component
run-time run-time

Security Security
DCE RPC DCE RPC
Provider Provider

LPC LPC

COM COM
Client Component
run-time run-time

Security Security
DCE RPC DCE RPC
Provider Provider

Protocol Stack Protocol Stack

DCOM netw ork-

protocol

19
Marshalling
 Static balancing using a referral
component
 Dynamic load balancing

 Marshalling (remoting): standard and

custom
Use custom marshalling when:
- a remote object itself is a proxy to some
other object
- the object’s state is in shared memory
(e.g. structured storage)
- an object’s state is immutable
(e.g. Monikers)
- batching remote calls into one
to optimize performance

20
Batching
Custom Proxy

Client DCOM Database

Comp
Component

Snapshot
/ Cache

Database

Referral
Component

Component
Client 3. Return connection to client
Component

Component
1. Requests connection 2. Creates connection to "best"
component
Component

Component
Referral
Component
Component

21
Custom Marshalling

22
 Scalability and
Performance
Client Duplicated Servers Dedicated Server
Business Rule
Client
Component
"Bottleneck"
Client Component

Client
Business Rule
Client Component
Dedicated Server
Client
Database
Client Component
Business Rule
Client Component

Client

Parameter Size 4 bytes 50 bytes

calls / sec ms / call calls / sec ms / call
"Pentium®,,” in-process 3,224,816 0.00031 3,277,973 0.00031
"Alpha™," in-process 2,801,630 0.00036 2,834,269 0.00035
"Pentium," cross-process 2,377 0.42 2,023 0.49
"Alpha," cross-process 1,925 0.52 1634 0.61
"Alpha," to Pentium remote 376 2.7 306 3.27
23
Microsoft Transaction Server

 MTS shelters developers from complex

server issues such as concurrency,
resource pooling, security, and context
management
 MTS provides run-time services for
components
 MTS ensures that transactions are
atomic, consistent, have proper
isolation and are durable
 MTS components are those that
execute in the MTS run-time
environment

24
Monikers

 A moniker is a name for a specific object

instance, that is, one particular
combination of CLSID(GUID) and persistent
data
 Monikers are themselves COM objects
which support an interface called Imoniker
 Each moniker has its own persistent data;
which includes all it needs to instantiate
and initialize the single object instance
which it identifies

25
The Future of COM

 ActiveDirectory Services
 What is DNA?

 Implementation problems

 Summary

28
COM+ Features

 Transactions and transaction management

 Databinding
 Persistence
 Load balancing
 Security
 In-memory database
 Event infrastructure
 Ubiquitous type description
 Dynamic invocation
 Garbage collection
 Interception

29
 References
 The Component Object Model Specification(Introduction)
Draft Version 0.9, October 24, 1995
Microsoft Corporation and Digital Equipment Corporation
Copyright © 1992-95 Microsoft Corporation.
http://www.microsoft.com/oledev/olecom/title.htm

 DCOM Technical Overview

© 1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved
http://www.microsoft.com/activex/complus-f.htm

 DCOM and CORBA Side by Side, Step by Step, and Layer by Layer
September 3, 1997 P. Emerald Chung Yennun Huang Shalini Yajnik
Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, New Jersey
Deron Liang Joanne C. Shih Chung-Yih Wang
Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Republic of China, Taiwan
Yi-Min Wang, AT&T Labs, Research, Florham Park, New Jersey

 Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) Binary Protocol

Nat Brown and Charlie Kindel, Network Working Group
Microsoft Corporation, May 1996, Updated: November 1996
http://premium.microsoft.com/msdn/library/techart/f365/f36c/f380/d390/s1305c.htm

 Inside OLE, 2nd Edition

Kraig Brockschmidt
Microsoft Press
Redmond WA 1995

 The COM Programmer's Cookbook (great implementation guide)

Crispin Goswell
Microsoft Office Product Unit, Spring 1995, Revised: September 13, 1995
http://premium.microsoft.com/msdn/library/techart/f365/f36c/f380/d390/s8b24.htm

30