JacORB Technical Support
OCI has skilled Java and CORBA consultants who can provide your software engineers with JacORB product support. We can help you solve your application problems and add new features to JacORB (which we will of course contribute back into the open source code base).
Is there an OCI Distribution of JacORB?
OCI does not maintain a separate version (or distribution) of JacORB as, for instance, it does with TAO, the other (C++) OCI supported ORB. JacORB does not change as frequently, nor as dramatically, as the TAO beta code base. For that reason, OCI can support the last three versions of JacORB, the changes to which are somewhat comparable to patches in the TAO support model. Additionally the use of a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) mitigates many of the platform specific issues which arise with ORBs in other languages.
Support Options: JacORB is open source, so you may choose to provide all the support yourself, and perhaps leverage off the CORBA newsgroups and their mutual support model. Or should you seek to mitigate your risk, you can contract with OCI to get predictable support tailored to your needs. Open source is about letting you choose. If we cannot provide better support than you provide for yourself, then we do not have a business model.
OCI provides contracted support for users of JacORB. (You do not need to be a user of TAO as well.) Customers with valid purchase orders, funding their support contracts, may obtain support via support. Please submit a PRF (problem report form) which can be found here:
OCI JacORB Problem Report Form (PRF)
Support is presently rendered two ways:
- During normal business hours, as required, on a best effort basis.
- On a 24 by 7 response basis with a service level agreement.
In both cases support is provided on an hourly time and materials model. Except 24 by 7 includes a monthly fee. It should be noted that OCI does not provide free technical support, except through the newsgroups. Users without support contracts should try one of the self-help CORBA newsgroups. Our FAQ page also is available at the JacORB web site.
Many times problems submitted by users are not specifically JacORB bugs, therefore OCI support for JacORB includes CORBA, Java and OO issues. OCI will make every effort to resolve the problem, be it Java syntax, poor CORBA practices, or inappropriate selection and implementation of CORBA services.
Help us Help you: When we support you, we work with you to manage both cost and time. For instance it will help if you could create a small test case that illustrates the problem. Or, if we have some quick ideas, you may want to test our suggested fixes, or work arounds first. Or we may ask you to instrument the code and send us the output. We try to help you manage the cost and the effort by approaching the problem in a cost effctive manner. If it is urgent we will assign additional engineers to solve the problem in a time effective manner. If an issue is urgent we prefer to know sooner rather than later.
If you copy others (CC) on the original PRF submission they can also watch the email traffic. A senior engineer will triage the request and assign it to another engineer based on the skills indicated by the PRF. We have multiple engineers also watching the request tracker ticket to ensure something does not get missed.
In spite of JVM we may feel we need to know your exact platforms, operating systems, chips etc in case you have special requirements. Sometimes we access the client systems remotely. That enables faster resolution. It is your choice.
Contact sales to obtain a support contract.
Contact sales for more details on a support contract tailored to meet your needs.