Deploying distributed objects on the Internet

Internet applications are becoming truly distributed as intelligence moves to the browser and services are being decentralised in order to improve the ir performance and availability. As a consequence distributed, object-orien ted technology in the form of language-level support, e.g., Sava, or middle ware platforms, e.g., CORBA, is being increasingly deployed. Underpinning t his technology are many years of research, such as that undertaken by the m embers of the Broadcast Working Group, into the problems of distribution in large-scale systems. In this chapter we outline some of the constraints of large scale systems i n general and the Internet in particular. We then present two case studies that illustrate the application of distributed, object-oriented technology developed within the project. The first of these is the W3Objects project i n which the technology is applied to the Web, and the second in which it is applied to Computer Supported Collaborative Work Internet applications.