In winter 2007/2008, ObjectSecurity supported ESG Elektroniksystem- und Logistik-GmbH with technical expertise and consulting services to port the HEROS system from a commercially licensed CORBA product to the free MICO open-source CORBA implementation. Since the HEROS software was built using the commercial vendor’s proprietary extensions (like message and connection time-out), ESG decided to procure an enhancement to MICO to support that functionality. This work required several technical extensions to MICO. At the end of the project, ESG also sponsored the final testing and release engineering of the new MICO 2.3.13 release which was released on 04 September 2008.
Steffen Pohle, project manager at ESG says that „ObjectSecurity offered highly competent, well-managed and cost-effective technical support. We are very happy with MICO open source CORBA, it is very stable, solid, and easy to use”. ObjectSecurity’s MICO support team adds “We are very grateful to ESG for their kind support of the latest MICO release and for their commitment to MICO”.
Some technical details: ObjectSecurity implemented parts of the CORBA standard messaging functionality (for the request time-out feature) and enhanced MICO by an as simple as possible MICO proprietary connection time-out feature and an API implementation that closely follows the standard CORBA messaging API. This was done to keep the code as clean as possible from the API point of view, and to simplify the usage of the feature during development. ESG also procured a MICO enhancement specification and implementation for an API to set multi-threading related ORB properties, which previously could only be set from the application command-line.
ABOUT HEROS-2/1 Lot 2 – The mobile Command, Control and Information System (C2IS) HEROS is commissioned by the German Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) and developed under the direction of ESG Elektroniksystem- und Logistik-GmbH and is deployed in multinational organizations. The system assists the command process from corps to division and down to brigade level. The 1st German-Netherlands Corps in Münster took over the HEROS system in May 2004 and has used it in several exercises. HEROS was handed over to the Eurocorps in Strasbourg in July 2004. HEROS is also currently deployed in national basic military organizational units in Germany. Modern IT equipment and Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components ensure that information processing within and information exchange between all command posts can take place quickly and reliably. Users work with one common operational picture. Interoperability with other command, control and information systems is ensured at all times.
ABOUT MICO – MICO is a mature, secure, robust, fully standards-compliant implementation of the CORBA standard. It is available as GNU open source software and is widely used (see success stories) for robust application integration. MICO is renowned for its market-leading security features, its great user-friendliness, and its full standard-compliance. ObjectSecurity’s reliable technical support and professional project management make MICO the preferred choice for many corporate users. See http://www.mico.org