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The Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP)® element specifies how GIOP messages are exchanged using TCP/IP connections. The IIOP
specifies a standardized interoperability protocol for the Internet, providing “out of the box? interoperation with other
compatible ORBs based on the most popular product- and vendor-neutral transport layer. It can also be used as the protocol
between half-bridges (see below).
The protocol is designed to be suitable and appropriate for use by any ORB to interoperate in Internet Protocol domains unless
an alternative protocol is necessitated by the specific design center or intended operating environment of the ORB. In that
sense it represents the basic inter-ORB protocol for TCP/IP environments, a most pervasive transport layer.
The IIOP’s relationship to the GIOP is similar to that of a specific language mapping to OMG IDL; the GIOP may be mapped onto
a number of different transports, and specifies the protocol elements that are common to all such mappings. The GIOP by itself,
however, does not provide complete interoperability, just as IDL cannot be used to build complete programs. The IIOP and other
similar mappings to different transports, are concrete realizations of the abstract GIOP definitions, as shown in
Figure 12-1 on page 12-4.
Figure 12-1 Inter-ORB Protocol Relationships.