Interoperable components across multiple component architectures

A component is a pre-fabricated, pre-tested software object that provides clients with a well-defined set of services. Component software requires an architecture through which any developer or vendor can deliver a component at any time and have that component become immediately useful to applications on any given system. A system that supports component software must therefore support a generic service abstraction that is, an architecture that defines how all types of components appear and how they are manipulated. As part of the thesis various component architectures COM, JavaBeans and CORBA have been studied and the interoperability issues between the components developed using these architectures has been discussed. A Migration tool has been developed to assist the developer in migrating an ActiveX control to a platform independent JavaBean. The tool gives a list of all ActiveX controls in the Windows registry and developer can select any particular ActiveX control to be converted to a JavaBean. The tool gives a skeleton code in Java for a JavaBean, which has properties and events similar to that of original ActiveX control. JavaBeans have been developed for making Graphical User Interface applications and Database applications like Forms and Reports. This further emphasizes that component-based development fosters rapid development of highly customizable applications