Systems and Computer Eng. Dept.,

Middleware provides inter-operability in a heterogeneous distributed object computing environment. Common Object Request Broker (CORBA) is a standard for middleware proposed by OMG. Although inter-operability is achieved middleware often introduces overheads that impair system performance. This research is concerned with performance enhancement of CORBA-based systems by deploying appropriate techniques at the application level. The paper demonstrates that decisions made by the application software designer and programmer can have a large impact on the performance of a CORBA-based system. The paper presents a set of guidelines that can be used at the design and implementation levels for enhancing system performance. We focus on issues such as reduction of connection set up latency, appropriate techniques for parameter passing, impact of method placement on response time, performance implications of different ways of packing objects in servers and load balancing. Insights into system behavior that highlight the effectiveness of the guidelines as well as capture the relationship between the CORBA compliant middleware and overall application performance are presented