CORBA and RM-ODP: parallel or divergent?

Modern architectures for distributed object environments (or distributed `middleware') are revealing an increasing trend towards standardization. The recent emergence of a standard for open distributed processing, the ISO/IEC Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) (ITU-T Recommendation X.901) and the coincidence of the development of the Object Management Group's Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), has prompted us to explore the relationship between these architectures. This paper analyses the CORBA architecture as a support environment for open distributed processing by comparing the business requirements for ODP, RM-ODP viewpoints, functions and distribution transparencies as specified in RM-ODP (ITU-T Recommendations X.901-4) with the CORBA architecture. Through this examination it is evident that despite distinctly divergent terminology, there exist significant parallels between CORBA and RM-ODP.