Chapter 1 Introducing EAServer

Naming services

When multiple servers are involved in your application, the naming service allows you to specify logical server names rather than server addresses. For example, instead of connecting to your finance component server at host badger using port 9000, you can specify the initial naming context for that server, such as USA/MyCompany/FinanceServer. Components are identified by specifying an initial server name context plus the package and component name. For example:

                     USA/MyCompany/FinanceServer/FinancePackage/PayrollAdmin

This layer of abstraction allows you to move a server to another host without affecting deployed client applications. Naming does require that one EAServer installation use a well-known, stable host and port. This server acts as the name server for other servers that participate in your application, and clients connect to that server to resolve name requests.

You can use either persistent or transient storage for the naming database. For transient storage, EAServer builds the name database in memory when it starts, based on the contents of the EAServer configuration repository. For persistent storage, you must provide a third-party directory server that accepts connections using the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). When using persistent storage, EAServer connects to the third-party directory server to create and edit name database entries, and to resolve client name requests.

Configuring naming services

Naming configuration for a multiserver application is briefly summarized as follows:

Choose one server to act as name server for the application. You can configure this server to store names in memory (transient storage), or to store names in a third-party directory server (persistent storage).
Configure each of the remaining servers to connect to the designated EAServer naming server to resolve names. Each server also updates the name space when packages and components are added or deleted in Jaguar Manager.

For detailed instructions, see "Naming Services" in the EAServer System Administration Guide.

Client APIs for naming

For Java and C++ clients, EAServer provides industry-standard client-side APIs for naming services. ActiveX clients use the naming service implicitly.

For Java clients, EAServer provides implementations of the CORBA standard CosNaming API and the Java Naming and Directory (JNDI) API. See "Creating Enterprise JavaBean Clients" and "Creating CORBA-Compatible Java Clients" in the EASErver Programmer's Guide and for more information.

For C++ clients, EAServer provides an implementation of the CORBA standard CosNaming API. See "Creating CORBA C++ Clients" in the EAServer Programmer's Guide for more information.