TECHNIQUES FOR INTERFACING BETWEEN WEB SERVICES AND INTERFACE DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE (IDL)-BASED REMOTE PROCEDURE CALL (RPC) SERVICES AND AN OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM IMPLEMENTING SAME

An embodiment of the present disclosure includes an RPC architecture that includes a central manager gateway with a client-facing side that allows for client access via web services protocols such as SOAP and REST. The central manager gateway further includes a server-facing side that can communicate with a plurality of network elements, with each network element implementing a common IDL architecture and RPC manager instance. Each of the network elements, and in particular their RPC manager instance, may communicate with other RPC manager instances to 'learn' the network topology for the system and maintain a topology database for purposes of exposing a naming service, e.g., a CORBA naming service. The network elements may elect one master element while the others remain as slaves. The central manager gateway may automatically locate the master network element and forward client requests to the same for servicing.