The Naming Service

One problem with CORBA objects is locating them. Often an object's IOR is translated into a string, and this string is passed to clients via other protocols - a file on a common hard-disk, a page in a web server, etc.

CORBA's portable method for distributing object references is using the naming service. A server may register its objects in the naming service, under a specific name, and clients may contact the naming service and ask it to translate that name back into an object reference.

The problem - the naming service itself is a CORBA object - how will clients locate its object reference? Solution - each ORB must be able to automatically find the naming service's object reference. Normally this is done using multicast or broadcast messages.