As recently as ten years ago, distributed computing generally meant
you had client PCs in one room with a server in another room.
The problem with this architecture is if the connection to the
server is lost, clients cannot update the payroll, sales,
or other distributed company databases.
To prevent this sort of down time, different networking models
were created. One example is the master and slave server model where
if the master fails, the slaves take over. The problem with the
different networking models is they all required some form of manual
intervention and were tied to one operating system or language.
And while these approaches met some of the short-term requirements
for decreasing down time, they did not apply to heterogeneous
distributed systems consisting of mixed network protocols and machines.
The JavaTM platform combined with other advances such as
Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), multi-tiered
servers, and wireless networks has brought the realization
of fully distributed computing a step further from the
traditional client and server approach.
Now you can build applications that include service redundancy by
default. If one server connection fails, you can seemlessly use a
service on another server. CORBA and Distributed Component Object
Model (DCOM) bridges mean that objects
can be transferred between virtually all machines and languages.
And with the new JiniTM System software, the distributed
computing environment can soon be part of everything in your home,
office or school. In short, distributed computing has never before
been as important as it is today.
In a Rush?
This table links you directly to specific topics.
| Topic |
Section |
| Lookup Services |
|
| Remote Method Invocation (RMI) |
|
| Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) |
|
| JDBC Technology |
|
[TOP]
