ZEN is a freely available, open-source, middleware that is compliant with most of the features defined in
the CORBA 2.3 specification. The design of ZEN is based on many of the patterns, techniques, and lessons
learned from the development of The ACE ORB (TAO). ZEN is implemented in Java to maximum ease of use and
has a micro-kernel architecture that minimizes foot-print for memory constrained DRE systems.
ZEN's architecture is based on the layered pluggability model, which allows unused ORB components to be factored out
of the ORB core to minimize middleware footprint. An extensible component based POA architecture allows
customization based on policies. Likewise, active demultiplexing optimizations that
associate client requests with target objects in constant time, regardless of the POA hierarchy.
Cross-cutting concerns that cannot be captured within a module or a class, such as logging, are
implemented in ZEN using Aspect Oriented Programming techniques. The Portable Interceptor
specification has been implemented using AspectJ.
This project is no longer maintained. Please refer to RT ZEN project, for a Real-time CORBA ORB implementation.