What is the ROT?
“Using ROT (Running Object Table) is a great way to establish interprocess communication between two windows applications. From a purely logical aspect, one application registers a pointer to an instance of a class in the ROT, the other one gets a pointer pointing to the same instance of the registered class and therefore can use the same instance of the class via this pointer. The class that is registered has to be a COM class, otherwise it can be written in any language. The application that will retrieve the pointer from the ROT can be written in any language that can use COM, as ROT gives a pointer to a COM interface.”
Can it be implemented in .NET?
Sure a .NET application can be exposed thru COM and then its pointer can be gotten and consumed by other applications querying the ROT.
And excelent example can be found here: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/COM/ROTStuff.aspx
As always it has its caveats. Be careful.
Obvious replacement?
Well if what you want is (Interprocess Communication) IPC,there are several options in .NET :
* Classical .NET remoting which is very simple and stable to
* Named Pipes see an example here http://bartdesmet.net/blogs/bart/archive/2007/04/12/getting-started-with-named-pipes.aspx
* or WCF with Named Pipes, an example here http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WCF/WCF_CommOptions_part1.aspx
WCF can be an interesting option specially if we were doing things like DCOM and Remote monikers.