Speaker

Michi Henning
ZeroC Inc.

Michi Henning is Chief Scientist of ZeroC, Inc., where he spends much of his time developing new software and consulting to customers world-wide. From 1995 to 2002, Michi worked extensively on CORBA as a member of the OMG Architecture Board, ORB implementer, consultant, and trainer. Together with Steve Vinoski, he wrote "Advanced CORBA Programming with C++", which among CORBA experts is rated as the definitive text in the field. Since joining ZeroC, Michi has been working on the design and implementation of a radical new OO middleware platform called "Ice". Ice breaks new ground in the middleware area by providing a platform that is less complex, more powerful, and better performing than CORBA, allowing distributed systems to scale to previously unachievable levels with significantly reduced development effort. Michi is a co-author of "Distributed Programming with Ice", which provides a detailed description of the Ice object model, protocol, and APIs. Michi holds an Honours Degree in Computer Science from the University of Queensland, is a founding member of Australian UNIX Users Group Queensland, and has acted as program chair and program committee member for numerous technical computer conferences. When not doing computer-related things, he desperately tries to improve his golf handicap. Hope springs eternal...

Presentation: "Panel discussion:CORBA vs. ICE and Standard vs. Innovation"

Wednesday 14:15 - 15:00 Conference Hall

Choosing to use any technology, such as a middleware technology like CORBA or ICE in a software project, has implications for parameters like:
* Application performance
* Productivity
* Portability
* Interoperability
* Vendor dependency and lock-in
* Availability of developers with knowledge about the technology
* Long term availability


How does ICE compare with CORBA on these parameters, and how important is the CORBA standard and other open, formal standards to software development ?
The discussion is headed by a unique collection of the worlds leading CORBA, ICE and distributed computing experts.

Presentation: "Ice -- The Internet Communications Engine"

Monday 13:00 - 13:45, Private Room

Ice is a revolutionary new object-oriented middleware platform that allows developers to build distributed client-server applications with minimal development effort. While similar in concept to middleware such as CORBA, Ice breaks new ground by providing a new object model that is both simpler and more powerful, getting rid of much of the inefficiencies that have plagued middleware in the past, and by providing new features, such as UDP support, asynchronous method dispatch, built-in security, automatic object persistence, and support for versioning.

This talk presents an overview of the Ice object model and architecture, and discusses a number of features of Ice that distinguish it from traditional middleware platforms. Particular emphasis is placed on explaining the motivation for various design decisions and their impact on implementation, performance, and scalability of applications. Throughout, code examples are used to highlight use of features and, where appropriate, to contrast the Ice approach with CORBA.