Object-based, distributed online real-time communication system modeling and development

With the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web, online communication becomes increasingly popular. As broadband network technologies are becoming widely accessible, the media rich, highly interactive online applications for virtual enterprise, distance education etc. will be a reality. How to take full advantages of technologies available and effectively integrate them into a cohesive distributed distance education system that addresses adequately the scalability and the openness still pose a challenging question.; To address this need, we have developed an approach based on the principles of component-based development, utilizing standard component infrastructure and its services. We apply this approach to the online real-time communication system with capability of rich real-time-interactions, which addresses key requirements for distance learning.; We provide a rigorous modeling and specification of the system, which describes the attributes that the distributed system must exhibit and prescribes the behavior of the system. This modeling shall allow software engineers to examine the behavior of systems under the development.; Based on this specification, we have developed a prototype of the distributed system to validate the effectiveness of our approach. The system is implemented with Java (JDK1.2) and the middleware is CORBA. The system is capable of handling multi-party real-time communication for a range of media types in a uniform manner. This system encompasses management facility such as authentication and allows dynamic services generation.; Running tests of this system in both Intranet and Internet environment have shown satisfactory results of this approach.