OCT JAN Feb 12 2008 2010 2011 7 captures 17 May 08 - 12 Jan 10

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Borland VisiBroker 7.0 Release Notes

1. Solaris 32/ 64-bit on SPARC and x64 (64-bit Xeon and Opteron)

2. HP-UX 32/ 64-bit on PA-RISC (classical and standard C++) and Intel Itanium (only standard C++)

3. Windows on x86 and x64 (64-bit Xeon and Opteron)

4. AIX 32/64-bit on PPC (classical and standard C++) 

5. RedHat Enterprise Linux 4.0 on x86, x64 (64-bit Xeon and Opteron),  ia64 (64-bit Intel Itanium) and P5 (64-bit Power5)

6. SuSE Enterprise Linux 9.0 on x86, x64 (64-bit Xeon and Opteron), s390 (31-bit) and zSeries (64-bit s390x)

7. Monta Vista Linux CGE 4.0 on EM64Ts and Cross Development on RedHat Enterprise Linux 3.0

This release note contains information specific to the Borland VisiBroker 7.0 release. This is a major release of the VisiBroker product suite that includes a value-added feature set and also addresses most of the customer-reported problems.

Please note that "Borland Enterprise Server, VisiBroker Edition" has been renamed to, "Borland VisiBroker". The official name of the current release is, "Borland VisiBroker 7.0".

This release note contains the following sections:

• New Features in VisiBroker

• Licensing

• Platform and code set information

• Installation changes (For upgrading from previous versions)

• Behavior changes (For upgrading from previous versions)

• Compatibility notes

• Tools update

• Properties update

• Late Breaking and Known Issues in this release

• Bugs fixed in this release (including Service Pack information)

New Features in VisiBroker

VisiBroker for C++

Enabling Web Service support

•  VisiBroker now allows you to expose your CORBA servers as Web Services. You can take advantage of this new feature to expand the reach of your legacy CORBA applications. VisiBroker makes use of Apache Axis technology as its underlying SOAP engine. This new feature also expands and replaces the functionality of VisiExchange that was provided in the previous versions of Borland VisiBroker. Now it is no longer necessary to run Apache Tomcat web container to deploy your web services. Although the Tomcat model is still supported, VisiBroker now provide this functionality within the CORBA servers. This will result in less setup and maintenance overhead. For more information, see the VisiBroker Web Services chapter in the VisiBroker Developer's Guide. To learn more about the properties used to start and configure the Web Services support runtime, and the various tools options, refer to the Properties and Tools chapters of the Developer's Guide. Examples illustrating this feature are provided in the "ws" sub-directory of the examples folder.

• Some of the salient features include: 

  • Axis runtime collocated with VisiBroker ORB 

  • Type-specific CORBA service provider (bridge) deployed using the standard Axis deployment model

  • Direct mapping from IDL to WSDL

  • In-process SOAP to GIOP adaptation to support the deployed bridge

• Version information 

  • Axis for C++ version 1.5 

  • WSDL 1.1 

  • SOAP 1.1 

  • CORBA to WSDL/SOAP Interworking Specification (February 2005; Version 1.1; formal/05-02-01)

• Please note that on platforms that support both Standard C++ and Classical C++ application development, classical C++ application development with Web Services support is not provided.

Pluggable Transport Interface

• With the Pluggable Transport Interface, it is possible to see other transport protocol - not just the ones built in the ORB for transmission of CORBA GIOP messages. The interface supports the plugging-in of multiple transport protocols simultaneously. It is designed to provide a common interface that is suitable for use with a wide variety of transport types. The transport implementations, however, need to adhere to the rules of the GIOP standard and the Core specifications.

• Though the interface itself uses CORBA standard types, it is VisiBroker proprietary. However, the interface is similar to the draft specification available in OMG for plugging in transports. To learn more, please see the VisiBroker Pluggable Transport Interface chapter in the VisiBroker for C++ Developer's Guide. A separate chapter is provided in the VisiBroker for C++ Programmer's Reference for the API documentation. Examples are provided in the "pluggable" sub-directory in the examples folder.

RT CORBA Features

• To provide more control for power users, the following features of the Real-Time CORBA extensions (as defined in the Real-Time CORBA 1.0 specification) are now supported:

  • Real-Time ORB

  • Real-Time Object Adapters

  • Real-Time CORBA Priority

  • Priority Mappings

  • Threadpools

  • Real-Time CORBA Current Interface

  • Real-Time CORBA Priority Models

  • Real-Time CORBA Mutex API

• The feature is provided only on UNIX platforms. For more information, refer to the Real-Time CORBA Extensions chapter in the VisiBroker for C++ Developer's Guide. API documentation is available in the Programmer's Reference. Examples for this feature are provided in the rtcorba sub-directory of the examples folder.

Improved Logging

• The VBC Debug logging facility that was introduced in version 6.5 of VisiBroker for C++, has been improved to provide an interface for writing custom appenders and layouts. This API can also be used with your application logger interfaces.

• Please refer the VisiBroker Logging chapter in VisiBroker for C++ Developer's Guide and the Programmer's Reference for the API documentation. Examples are provided in the debug sub-directory of the examples folder.

• All logging for the VisiBroker services have been streamlined to use this logging feature. For the source names for individual services, please refer to the Properties chapter of the VisiBroker for C++ Developer's Guide.

New and improved examples

• VisiBroker for C++  7.0 includes new and improved examples that demonstrate the VisiBroker services in a simple and clear manner. New examples have been added to:

  • VisiNaming examples.

  • Object Activation Daemon (OAD) examples.

  Please see the example .html files under the respective directories for the services listed above.

Value added enhancements

• Co-located invocation performance has been improved. Most of the data types have improvements of about 200 to 300%. This improvement is transparent to the user without loss of functionality.

• URL format using "file://" is now supported. Please see the Properties chapter in the VisiBroker for C++ Developer's Guide for more information.

• This release provides EventQueue::ConnInfo in the context of invocation. Using the VIS_EXT::get_client_info() EventQueue::ConnInfo structure, you can obtain information about the peer using a request.

• CORBA::TIMEOUT exceptions being thrown during an attempt to make a connection, sending a request or receiving a reply now have different minor codes in the Vmcid::VBVMCID1 namespace to distinguish them. For connection time-out, the minor code is 1 | Vmcid::VBVMCID1. For request timeout, the minor code is 2 | Vmcid::VBVMCID1. For reply timeout, the minor code is 3 | Vmcid::VBVMCID1.

• Refer to the properties section for information about property enhancements.

VisiBroker for Java

Enabling Web Services Support

• VisiBroker now allows you to expose CORBA servers as Web Services. You can take advantage of this new feature to expand the reach of your legacy CORBA applications. VisiBroker makes use of Apache Axis technology as its underlying SOAP engine. This new feature also expands and replaces the functionality of VisiExchange that was provided in the previous versions of Borland VisiBroker. Now it is no longer necessary to run the Apache Tomcat web container to deploy your web services. Although the Tomcat model is still supported, VisiBroker now provides this functionality within the CORBA servers. This will result in less setup and maintenance overhead. To learn more, refer to the VisiBroker Web Services chapter in the VisiBroker Developer's Guide. To learn more about the properties used to start and configure the Web Services support runtime, and the various tools options, refer to the Properties and Tools chapters of the Developer's Guide. Examples illustrating this feature are provided in the ws sub-directory of the examples folder.

• The new features include: 

  • Axis runtime included within the VisiBroker ORB 

  • Type specific CORBA service provider (bridge) deployed using standard Axis deployment model

  • Direct mapping from IDL to WSDL

  • In process SOAP to GIOP adaptation to support the deployed bridge

• Version information 

  • Axis for Java version 1.2

  • WSDL 1.1 

  • SOAP 1.1 

  • CORBA to WSDL/SOAP Interworking Specification (February 2005; Version 1.1; formal/05-02-01)

Improved Logging

• VisiBroker for Java now has an improved logging mechanism that is based in Log4j. The older logging properties are still valid, but users can now exploit all of the features of Log4j such as filters, appenders, layouts, and nested diagnostic contexts to get more information when logging their applications. 

• To learn more about the improved logging mechanism, please see the logging section near the end of VisiBroker Properties chapter in the VisiBroker for Java Developer's Guide.

New and improved examples

• VisiBroker for Java 7.0 comes with new and improved examples that demonstrate the VisiBroker services in a simple and clear manner. New examples include:

  • VisiNaming examples.

  • Object Activation Daemon (OAD) examples.

  Please see the example .html files under the respective directories for the services listed above.

64-bit JDK support

• VisiBroker for Java now supports 64-bit JDK.

VisiBroker Naming service (VisiNaming)

Out-of-the-box integration with the JDataStore High Availability feature

• VisiNaming (provided as part of VisiBroker) supports the High Availability feature of JDataStore 7.0.5. To learn more about the details of this feature, please see the VisiNaming chapter in the VisiBroker Developer's Guide.

VisiBroker Transaction service (VisiTransact)

POA managed transactions (PMT)

• PMT is a database-independent solution for integrating databases into transactions. This feature makes use of a server application model along with an XA configuration so that the transaction logic becomes transparent to the application business logic. The transactional specification is hidden in the POA using a new POA policy PMT_ATTRS_TYPE. Different values such as PMT_NotSupported, PMT_Required, PMT_Supports, PMT_RequiresNew, PMT_Mandatory, PMT_Never can be specified to obtain different transactional behavior. PMT separates and hides all database connection and transaction details from application business logic developers. With PMT, business logic (such as servant implementation) does not need to hard-code database connection and transaction logic within its implementation. With PMT, a given business logic implementation can involve both client and server initiated transactions (SIT and CIT).

• For more information regarding this feature, refer to the Server Application Model chapter of the VisiTransact Guide. Two examples are provided in the Transactions sub-folder of the examples directory.

• This feature makes the Session Manager obsolete. All the functionality associated with the Session Manager, such as Session Manager Resource Configuration, Pluggable Interface, and Session Manager Resource Director are also discontinued. In order to use this facility, you need the vbroker.its.its6xmode property. See the properties section for more information.

• Introduces a new resource manager (RM) recovery utility (rmrecover) to clean up "in-doubt" transactions.

VisiBroker Security service (VisiSecure)

New and improved examples

• Demonstrating use of VisiSecure with VisiNaming and GateKeeper. Please see the example .html files under the respective directories for the services described above.

Other enhancements 

• C++ and Java applications involving GateKeepers can now be secured. Please see the secure_gatekeeper example for illustration.

• virtual const vbsec::SSLSession* vbsec::Current::getPeerSession ( CORBA::Object* peer) = 0;
  When calling this function from a client side, applications must pass the reference to the CORBA object of interest.
  When calling this function from a server side, applications must call this function from within request contexts (in the control path while serving the request made by the client) and application must pass NULL as a parameter.
  This new behavior eliminates ambiguity when the API is called in a request context on a mid-tier.
  Client -> Mid-tier -> Server
  In the Mid-tier, calling the same API but passing a different parameter will give different SSLSession and (unlike in the previous release) failure of each must not fallback to the other.

• Please refer to vbsecminors.h in the include directory for a list of minor codes meant for VisiSecure exceptions. These values are consistent between VisiSecure for Java and C++.

64-bit JDK support

• VisiSecure for Java now supports 64-bit JDK.

VisiBroker Notification service (VisiNotify)

Threadpool for Proxy Push Supplier

• In past releases, a proxy push supplier connected to a push consumer always used a dedicated thread to push events to a consumer. This enhancement provides the proxy push supplier with an option to also use a configurable thread pool. By default, the proxy now uses the thread pool. QoS property VBProxyPushSupplierThreadModel, specifies this option at the channel, consumer admin or proxy push supplier level. Valid values are "dedicated" and "pool". "pool" is the default.

• The standard thread pool configurations such as thread max, thread min, and thread max idle can be created with the vbroker style properties. Please see the Property Update section for more information regarding these properties.

Event-related counters

• Information regarding the state of the event queues inside VisiNotify is now exposed using the QosAdmin API. The following event counters are exposed:

  • VBReceivedEventsCount

  • VBPendingEventsCount

  • VBDiscardedEventsCount

  • VBForwardedEventsCount

  • VBFilteredEventsCount

• For more information, refer to the Setting the Quality of Service and Filters chapter of the VisiBroker VisiNotify Guide.

VisiBroker for .NET

Janeva re-named to VisiBroker for .NET

• VisiBroker for .NET, previously called Janeva, is now an integral part of the VisiBroker product line. We continue our goal of complying with the latest offerings from Microsoft. This section describes the new features in VisiBroker for .NET 7.0

• As part of re-naming, application configuration .xml files now use <visinet> xml tags in place of the former <janeva> xml tags. For example:
  <configuration>
      <configSections>
          <section name="visinet" type="Janeva.Settings, Borland.Janeva.Runtime"/>
      </configSections>
      <visinet>
          <naming url="corbaloc::localhost:900/NameService"/>
     </visinet>
  </configuration>
  The former <janeva> tag is still acceptable in this release but is being discontinued. Application configuration .xml files containing both types of tags are invalid and will be rejected by our validating parser.

Visual Studio 2005 support and .NET 2.0 

• VisiBroker for .NET now supports the .NET 2.0 framework for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Licensing

• Borland VisiBroker must be licensed and registered before it will run; there is no grace period. However, you may start the LM Administrator tool and then license the application remotely. For instructions on how to register your license, go to http://support.borland.com/entry.jspa?externalID=4273&categoryID=112

Platform and code set information

For VisiBroker platform information, go to: http://support.borland.com/kbcategory.jspa?categoryID=395

VisiBroker for C++

Code set support for VisiBroker for C++

• Native code set for char (tcsc) = ISO-LATIN-1 (ISO-8859-1)

• Conversion code sets for char = -Nil-

• Native code set for wide char (tcsw) = UTF-16

• Conversion code sets for wide char = -Nil-

• As the charset of UCS-2 Level 1 is compatible with UTF-16, UCS-2 Level 1 is also supported for VisiBroker for C++.

Visual Studio for .NET 2005 with Hot Fix (KBR 915418)

• Because of a Visual Studio for .NET 2005 C++ compiler issue as documented by Microsoft at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=915418, a patch needs to be applied to your Visual Studio installation before building VisiBroker applications. Please refer to the platform page http://support.borland.com/kbcategory.jspa?categoryID=395 for more information on  the compiler patch.

Windows Side By Side (SxS) Assemblies

• VisiBroker for C++ supports the Visual Studio for .NET 2005 compiler. In this version of the compiler, the C++ runtime is provided as a side by side assembly (Microsoft.VC80.CRT). To resolve the C++ runtime dependency, VisiBroker installs these assemblies as private assemblies. VisiBroker applications, however, will also need to install these C++ runtime assemblies. Please refer to http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235531(VS.80).aspx for more information regarding SxS assemblies 

VisiBroker Services on Platforms supporting both Classical and Standard C++

• On platforms which support development of both classical and standard C++ development (such as HP-UX and AIX), the C++ services binaries shipped with VisiBroker are built with classical C++. All C++ stand-alone services, such as VisiNotify, VisiTelcoLog, and OTS are built with classical C++ and hence link into the classical C++ version of the libraries. Please also refer to the documentation for the Known Issue about Securing CORBA services.

Thread library used on Solaris

• On Solaris platform, to support RT extension features, Posix Threads are now used. While building the applications please also use -DPTHREADS flag. For more details on the compilation flags to be used, please refer stdmk in the examples directory. This is a change from the past releases where the Solaris Native threads were used.

VisiBroker for Java

• Please see the Client Basics chapter of the VisiBroker for Java Developer's Guide.

Installation Changes

VisiBroker for C++

Web Service support

• Web Services Runtime binaries: 

  • Windows - AxisServer.dll (AxisServer64.dll), AxisXMLParser.dll (AxisXMLParser64.dll), ws_r.dll (ws64_r.dll), xerces-c_2_7.dll (xerces-c_2_7_64.dll) 

  • Solaris and Linux - libaxis_server.so (libaxis_server64.so), libaxis_xmlparser.so (libaxis_xmlparser64.so), libws_r.so (libws64_r.so), libxerces-c_2_7.so (libxerces-c_2_7_64.so)

  • HP-UX and AIX - libaxis_server.sl/a (libaxis_server64.sl/a), libaxis_xmlparser.sl/a (libaxis_xmlparser64.sl/a), libws_r.sl/a (libws64_r.sl/a), libxerces-c_2_7.sl/a (libxerces-c_2_7_64.sl/a). Please note that these libraries are built using -AA flag. Classical C++ versions of these libraries are not provided. The suffix is .so on the HP-UX Itanium platform.

• Web Services Development tools - vbwsdev.jar, vbwscdev.jar, idl2wsc (idl2wsc.exe on Windows)

• Examples - In examples/vbroker/ws directory. There are two examples in this directory. examples/vbroker/ws/bank which illustrates how the basic/bank_agent example can be exposed as a Web Service, and examples/vbroker/ws/animal which illustrates the migration for VisiExchange users.

Pluggable Transport Interface

• Runtime binaries - 

  • Windows - pluggable_r_70.dll (pluggable64_r_70.dll) [pluggable_r.lib (pluggable64_r.lib) are the import library names]

  • Solaris and Linux - libpluggable_r.so.7.0 (libpluggable64_r.so.7.0) [libpluggable_r.so (libpluggable64_r.so) are the softlinks].

  • HP-UX and AIX - libpluggable_<p>r.sl/a.7.0 (libpluggable64_<p>r.sl/a.7.0) [libpluggable_<p>r.sl/a (libpluggable64_<p>r.sl/a) are the softlinks]. Binaries with <p> are the Standard C++ versions. The suffix is .so on the HP-UX Itanium platform.

• Header files - vptrans.h

• Examples - Located in the examples/vbroker/pluggable directory. examples/vbroker/pluggable/mytcp illustrates pluggable transport implementation using TCP/IP and examples/vbroker/pluggable/mytcp_bank illustrates how the basic/bank_agent example can be used in a pluggable transport implementation.

VisiBroker for Java

Web Service support

• Web Services Runtime binaries are bundled inside vbjorb.jar

• Web Services Development tools are bundled inside vbwsdev.jar, vbwsjdev.jar and idl2wsj (idl2wsj.exe on Windows)

• Examples - Located in the examples/vbroker/ws directory. There are two examples here examples/vbroker/ws/bank which illustrates how the basic/bank_agent example can be exposed as Web Service and examples/vbroker/ws/animal which illustrates the migration for VisiExchange users.

VisiBroker for .NET

• VisiBroker for .NET is now bundled with VisiBroker for Java and C++.

VisiBroker Transaction service (VisiTransact)

• POA managed transaction

  • Windows - rmrecover.exe, and dom2cam_r.dll (dom2cam64_r.dll). [dom2cam_r.lib (dom2cam64_r.lib) are the import libraries]

  • Solaris and Linux - rmrecover, and libdom2cam_r.so (libdom2cam64_r.so)

  • HP-UX and AIX - rmrecover, and libdom2cam_<p>r.sl/a (libdom2cam64_<p>r.sl/a). The suffix is .so on the HP-UX Itanium platform.

  • Examples are located in the examples/vbroker/Transactions directory.

• otsinit.o (otsinit.obj) is no longer needed and hence not shipped.

• When building applications using Session Manager libraries, your applications need to be linked to Oracle 9i client libraries.

VisiSecure for Java

• Examples under the directory .../examples/security are J2EE security examples and will not work without using the EJB jar files.

Behavior Changes

VisiBroker for C++

• set_policy_overrides() API may throw an exception - If invalid policy values are input into set_policy_overrides(), the CORBA::InvalidPolicies exception may be thrown. Previously, any invalid policy values were silently ignored and handled in a default way.

VisiBroker for Java

• Using Logging properties - Due to the introduction of new logging mechanisms, there is a change in the behavior of the legacy logging properties. To enable logging for the ORB or any service, please make sure that the property vbroker.log.enable is set to "true". For more details, please see the VisiBroker for Java Developer's guide.

VisiBroker Transaction service (VisiTransact)

• VisiBroker 6x Behavior - Because of the introduction of PMT, some of the VisiBroker 6.x behavior has been discontinued. To use VisiBroker 6.x behavior, use the property vbroker.its.its6xmode=true. By setting this property, the following discontinued behavior is enabled:

1. The transactional application uses in-proc OTS.

2. The POA is not created with OTS policy, but the object on that POA is inherited from CosTransactions::TransactionalObject.

3. The application uses NonTxTargetPolicy on the client side.

4. The application uses the SessionManager.

5. The VisiTransact OTS server is used by VBJ Java clients and VBJ Servers.

VisiBroker Security service (VisiSecure)

Host Login Module

• Windows platform: HostLoginModule shipped with VisiSecure for Windows platforms now expects an explicit Windows domain name, such as "." when authenticating users against a local machine. For example,
  Username: \\.\Administrator
  Password: 
  Above, please notice the "." (dot) between the second and the third backslash specifying that the authentication is expected to be against the local machine.
  When the username is entered plainly without domain specification, as follows:
  Username: bernarto
  Password: 
  It will authenticate the user against the Windows domain, to which the local machine belongs. When the authentication fails, unlike the former VisiSecure, it does not fallback and authenticate the user against the local machine.
  Please note that in the case where your machine does not belong to any Windows domain, or your organization’s intranet does not use a domain mechanism and therefore all users are authenticated only against a local machine, you must always explicitly supply the ".", or in this particular case, the authentication will always fail.
  Likewise, authentication of a user can be done against any Windows domain, regardless of whether or not the local machine belongs to that domain. This includes the case where there are Windows domains available on your intranet, but your local machine is not a member of any of them.
  Username: \\APAC\btjahjono
  Password: 
  For the Host Login Module, the username account needs to be a member of at least one Windows user group, or the login will always fail.

Compatibility notes

VisiBroker for C++

• Binary compatibility - Since this is a major release, the binaries of the VisiBroker for C++ libraries are not compatible with those of the previous version. The reason for the incompatibility is primarily the support for Real-Time CORBA extension features.

VisiBroker for .NET

• Visual Studio compatibility - VisiBroker for .NET now supports Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. The VisiBroker for .NET add-in is only supported for VS 2005 and not for VS 2003.

VisiBroker Notification service (VisiNotify)

• Persistence compatibility - VisiNotify and VisiTelcoLog persistency layers are not compatible with the previous releases. In the case of VisiNotify, the persistency folder needs to be cleaned up before use. In the case of VisiTelcoLog, please migrate the log to the new service by re-directing all the logs and storing them in the new service.

VisiBroker Transaction service (VisiTransact)

• VisiBroker 6x Behavior - Because of the introduction of PMT, some of the VisiBroker 6.x behavior has been discontinued. To use the discontinued functionality, use the property vbroker.its.its6xmode=true. By setting this property, the following behavior is enabled:

1. The transactional application uses in-proc OTS.

2. The POA is not created with OTS policy, but the object on that POA is inherited from CosTransactions::TransactionalObject.

3. The application uses NonTxTargetPolicy on the client side.

4. The application uses the SessionManager.

5. The VisiTransact OTS server is used by VBJ Java clients and VBJ Servers. For more information see the next point.

• Enabling transactions for Java applications - VisiTransact does not provide support for Java applications out of the box. To use transactional capability for Java applications, use Borland AppServer (asrt.jar). For all such use cases, the property vbroker.its.its6xmode should be set to true in OTS. Also, please note that PMT is not supported for Java. Java clients also do not interact with C++ servers running in the PMT mode in this release. 

• otsinit not shipped - To embed a VisiTransact Transaction Service instance in a C++ executable application, you no longer need to link with otsinit.obj (otsinit.o on UNIX). otsinit.obj (otsinit.o on UNIX) is no longer shipped in VisiTransact 7.0.

Tools update

VisiBroker for C++

• New compilers idl2wsj (Java) and idl2wsc (C++) have been added to compile IDL into WSDL

VisiBroker for Java

• New compilers idl2wsj (Java) and idl2wsc (C++) have been added to compile IDL into WSDL.

Properties update

VisiBroker for C++

VisiBroker for Java

VisiBroker Notification service (VisiNotify)

VisiBroker Transaction service (VisiTransact)

Late Breaking and Known issues in this release

VisiBroker for C++

Web services support issues

• Axis for C++ Issues

  • The Axis C++ runtime supports only one "portType" WSDL definition. A "portType" is always defined for an IDL interface, hence only one IDL interface can be supported. Multiple "portType" WSDL definitions are also defined if we have multiple encodings. The idl2wsc and idl2wsj compilers always generate two encodings (i.e. WS-I and SOAP encodings) and hence two portType definitions are defined one for WS-I and one for SOAP encoding. To prevent having two "portType" WSDL definitions generated by idl2wsc, please use only one of the following flags: "-encoding_wsi_only" or "-encoding_soap_only". Therefore, it is a known limitation that a Web Service Enabled VisiBroker for C++ Server can only support one encoding at a time. 

  • Axis for C++ supports only SOAP encoding. Any SOAP client not using this encoding in the SOAP message will not interoperate.

  • A few runtime errors (some even fatal) are seen on Axis for C++ when either the bridge fails to load up (such as either the WSDD specified is wrong, or there is some problem with the bridge library), or a badly formed SOAP message is sent to the XML parser.

  • Axis leaks memory when it fails to find a service. This may happen if the service was not deployed in the first place. In such cases, the server engine leaks about 331 bytes per call when generating the fault.

  • wsdl2ws doesn't convert dot names using C++ or Java scoping resolution operator to valid identifier names in C++ (i.e. a WSDL name of "A.B.calculator" generates a class called "A.B.calculator".

  • wsdl2ws doesn't generate enum code validation (for example, unlike wsdl2java, the enum string names are not validated by the generated code).

  • xsd:string maps to a "char *" which means that no unicode support is built-in. Proper conversion (if possible) must be made, especially for data from Java peers

  • There are known problems in Axis when trying to serialize or deserialize complex array types. Because of this, an IDL array or sequence of complex constructs or a multi dimensional array may not work properly.

  • https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AXISCPP documents the issues.

• Interoperability with Microsoft .NET

  • When compiling a WSDL file generated by VisiBroker's idl2wsc or idl2wsj compiler using a Microsoft .NET compiler, the following warning is generated:
    "R2721: A wsdl:binding in a DESCRIPTION MUST have the name attribute specified on all contained soapbind:fault elements"
    Note that this warning can be safely ignored.

  • When generating .NET stubs for a Web Service client from the WSDL file generated by VisiBroker's idl2wsc or idl2wsj compiler, the following error is encountered:
     --- Unable to import <binding> from <namespace> ---
    Microsoft confirms that this is a bug in their wsdl tool:
    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B820122. This problem occurs because the generated wsdl file imports another wsdl file, which has a normative description of the CORBA namespace.

• Web services examples for Monta Vista Cross Development using RHEL 3.0: The web services examples in the vbroker/ws and vbroker/security/ws folders use the "vbj" launcher to launch org.apache.axis.wsdl.WSDL2Java for generating Axis Client-side bindings. The "vbj" launcher is a target executable and cannot be used on the development platform. To work around this problem, please use the java launcher after setting the following jar files in the class path - vbjorb.jar, axis.jar, jaxrpc.jar, saaj.jar, commons-logging.jar, commons-discovery.jar, wsdl4j-1.5.1.jar

Object Request Broker

• On the Windows platform, the C++ ORB does not install any exit handlers to shutdown the ORB. Because of this, any behavior expected for shutdown semantics such as ORB_shutdown notification or interceptor destroy notifications are not automatically received on application exit or on calling an exit API. This is because Windows does not support heavy duty operations such as thread creation which may be needed for ORB shutdown in exit handlers. Users are expected to call ORB shutdown or destroy explicitly if such notifications are needed. On UNIX platforms, however, exit handlers are installed and these notifications are automatically received.

• On some platforms, such as HP-UX, AIX, RHEL and SLES, you may need root privileges to use RT features.

• For the RT extension features, the default priority mapping for the threads is as given below. This information will be updated in the product documentation in the next release.

VisiBroker for Java

Web services support issues

• Web services examples for Monta Vista Cross Development using RHEL 3.0: The web services examples in the vbroker/ws and vbroker/security/ws folders use the "vbj" launcher to launch org.apache.axis.wsdl.WSDL2Java for generating Axis Client-side bindings. The "vbj" launcher is a target executable and cannot be used on the development platform. To work around this problem, please use the java launcher after setting the following jar files in the class path - vbjorb.jar, axis.jar, jaxrpc.jar, saaj.jar, commons-logging.jar, commons-discovery.jar, wsdl4j-1.5.1.jar

• Inter-operability with Microsoft .NET

  • When compiling a WSDL file generated by VisiBroker's idl2wsc or idl2wsj compiler using a Microsoft .NET compiler, the following warning is generated:
    "R2721: A wsdl:binding in a DESCRIPTION MUST have the name attribute specified on all contained soapbind:fault elements"
    Note that this warning can be safely ignored.

  • When generating .NET stubs for a Web Service client from a WSDL file generated by VisiBroker's idl2wsc or idl2wsj compiler, the following error is encountered:
     --- Unable to import <binding> from <namespace> ---
    Microsoft confirms that this is a bug in their wsdl tool:
    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B820122
    This problem occurs because the generated wsdl file imports another wsdl file, which has a normative description of CORBA namespace.

Object Request Broker

• Logging properties vbroker.log.default.filter.* have some problem when filtering. As work around use the property style vbroker.log.filter.default.*. Also, while changing the layout for an appender, the property vbroker.log.default.appender.<appender-inst-name>.layoutType does not work. As a work around, use the name vbroker.log.default.appender.<appender-inst-name>.layout. This will be fixed in a future patch.

• When NIO is used on UNIX platforms: Make sure that the ulimit for file descriptors is set to the highest possible value.

• NIO: Has been found to perform better on UNIX platforms than on Windows.

• TRANSPARENT and NO_REBIND QoS policies behave differently on Windows. When handling closed connections, the following exception is thrown in cases where the RebindPolicy is set to TRANSPARENT or NO_REBIND:
  "Caught a org.omg.CORBA.COMM_FAILURE: java.net.SocketException: Software caused connection abort: recv failed vmcid: 0x0 minor code: 0 completed: No exception."
  This issue is caused by the way Windows OS handles closed connections as compared to the UNIX OS; the connection gets a reset rather than a transition through the various TCP states.

• Time Zone Displacement Factor (tdf) returned by VisiTime: When the methods universal_time and secure_universal_time are called, the tdf returned by VisiTime is the raw Time Zone offset. It is not the Day Light Saving Time adjusted Time Zone. In addition, note that the Time Zone value represents the Time Zone where VisiTime is running.

• VisiTime and the uncertainty in the time interval introduced due to proxy effect: VisiTime does not provide any means to correct this (see Appendix B in the OMG Time Service specification). Users are advised to run an instance of VisiTime either in-process with the application, or on each host to avoid this phenomenon.

• IPv6 functionality on HP-UX platforms (PA-RISC and IA): To use the IPv6 functionality, the following property is required::
  java.net.preferIPv4Stack=false
  Please see the HP-JDK release notes for more details.
  Note: If you are using the 'vbj' launcher to launch your applications, then this property need not be specified, as it is already defined in the vbj.config file. 

• On some hosts, it has been observed that when using the IPv6 stack, the connection attempts can be slow. This may be because of the machine's configuration or network setup.

Request Agent

• In prior versions of VisiBroker, an abortive shutdown message from the Request Agent running on the Windows platform would throw an org.omg.CORBA.COMM_FAILURE exception with minor code 4 with rebind policy set to org.omg.Messaging.NO_REBIND. From VisiBroker 7.0 onwards, this will result in org.omg.CORBA.OBJECT_NOT_EXIST exception.

VisiSecure for C++

Issue on Windows and AIX

• When applications link with the VisiSecure for C++ library (vbsec.lib/libvbsec<64>.a), at runtime, the service may not be initialized correctly. This is because of a platform level behavior because of which even though the service library is linked into the application, the library does not get loaded during the load time. To work around this problem, either include vbsec.h from any of the translation units or explicitly pass the following property in the command line –Dvbroker.orb.dynamicLibs=vbsec.dll/libvbsec<64>.a

Host Login Module

• On UNIX platforms:  The HostLoginModule shipped with VisiSecure for UNIX platforms utilizes simple APIs defined in the POSIX standard header file pwd.h that is uniform on almost all UNIX platforms. For deployments that demand higher security measures, more advanced shadow password APIs are available. One problem with this, however, is that the process calling the APIs must run as root. More over, the APIs are not in POSIX standard and therefore the login module code will be less portable. To write your own login module based on shadow password APIs on Linux, for example, you can use the APIs that are declared in the system header file shadow.h. Please consult the -man (manual) page on your Linux system.

Securing CORBA service executables on HP-UX and AIX platforms

• CORBA services executables, for example, VisiNotify and OTS are built in classical mode on the HP-UX and AIX platform and therefore require the corresponding VisiSecure C++ shared library for securing them. For example, on 32-bit HP-UX and AIX:
  visinotify –Dvbroker.orb.dynamicLibs=libvbsec.sl/libvbsec.a
  ots –Dvbroker.orb.dynamicLibs = libvbsec.sl/libvbsec.a
  On 64-bit HP-UX and AIX,
  visinotify –Dvbroker.orb.dynamicLibs=libvbsec64.sl/libvbsec64.a
  ots –Dvbroker.orb.dynamicLibs=libvbsec64.sl/libvbsec64.a

VisiBroker Transaction service (VisiTransact)

• Applications should not explicitly suspend/resume transaction or obtain transaction coordinator/terminator on a POA-implicit managed transaction (PMT).

• Disable the door on Solaris when multiple clients make invocations to a PMT-enabled server.

• On some platforms such as HP-UX, SLES, RHEL and AIX, VisiTransact may fail to start up when VBROKER_ADM points to a NFS drive. Please point this environment variable to a local drive.

• Before starting xa_resdir, ensure that any in-doubt transactions performed in 7x mode are cleaned and cleared. Refer to Oracle's documentation for more information on how to clean and clear transactions.

• In the rmrecover utility section of the VisiTransact Guide, the following step:
  4. Start the rmrecover utility rmrecover -ORBInitRef VisiTransactionService=corloc::<host>:<port>/VisiTransactionService <xa_resource_desc.xml> <xa-resource name> 
  should be: 
  4. Start the rmrecover utility rmrecover <xa_resource_desc.xml> <xa-resource name> -ORBInitRef VisiTransactionService=corloc::<host>:<port>/VisiTransactionService 

VisiBroker for .NET

• VisiBroker for .NET assemblies that were installed into the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) when VisiBroker was installed, are not removed from the GAC during uninstall. To uninstall, please run the script AsmUtil.exe located in VisiNet directory.

VisiBroker Console and License Admin (lmadm)

• On AIX, when running with JDK 1.5, please set LIBPATH to include $JAVA_HOME/jre/bin/j9vm. Please refer http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/aix/j564/sdkguide.aix64.html for further information.

• NullPointerException is thrown when the look-and-feel in VBConsole is changed to GTK+. This will be fixed in a future patch.

Installer Documentation

• The vb_install.pdf mentions that the default installation directory on Windows is C:\Borland\BDP instead of C:\Borland\VisiBroker

• The vb_install.pdf and the HTML help lists an incorrect console command for starting Solaris. console modeInstead of typing, install_solaris install -i console, you should type, Unix/Solaris[64]/Solaris/installer.bin -i console.

Bugs fixed in this release

Service Pack Information

The last merged VBE Service Pack was VBE 6.5 P8.

VisiBroker for C++, VisiTransact, VisiNotify and VisiTelcoLog

VisiBroker for Java, VisiNaming

VisiBroker for .NET

VisiSecure for Java and C++