Internet Communication Engine (Ice) Basics

Ice Principles

  • Distributed communication between several computers and processes using TCP or UDP coordinated by a service called IceGrid
  • Interface Definition Language (IDL) to describe interfaces in a uniform way
  • Remote Procedure Calls using proxies (sync and async)
  • Publish/Subscribe mechanism realized through the IceStorm server which uses topics for communication

Official Webpage: http://www.zeroc.com/ Ice Documentation: http://doc.zeroc.com/display/Ice/Ice+Manual

Object Types in Ice

Anonymous Ice objects:

  • Objects are not explicitly registered with IceGrid
  • Objects only reachable through explicit proxy passing

Ice "well-known objects":

  • Objects are registered with IceGrid using a unique name
  • The unique object names can be used to query IceGrid/Locator for object proxies