Utilizing commercial object libraries within looselycoupled, event-based systems

A class of loosely-coupled, event-based systems is emerging as an effective candidate solution for constructing large, heterogeneous, and dynamic software architectures. Given the dominancy of classic objectbased remote procedure call-based applications, it is important to bridge the gap between the two paradigms so the past investment can be preserved and the transition to the new model can be eased. This paper addresses the issues encountered in utilizing a commercial object RPC library, namely Microsoft Component Object Model, within event-based systems. A framework is proposed to integrate legacy applications into event-based systems. Its effectiveness is demonstrated through an experiment to integrate a commercial COM product with an event-based development environment. Some problems worthy of further research are also identified.