DISTRIBUTED ARCHITECTURE

A distributed architecture is a three-tier client/server system that enhances object(s) maintenance through a heterogeneous environment. This mainly constitutes a client, database server and application server.

It uses a general protocol used to communicate method invocations across machine boundaries, this is the Remote Method Invocation (RMI).

RMI protocols available today:

· Microsoft DCOM - provides Active-X to Active-X communication on Windows platform only. Support Active-X components and many tools like Powerbuilder and Visual Basic.
· Java RMI - Platform independent and supports Java language only.
· OMG CORBA - provides any language to any language communication on any platform. This is platform and language independent.

The application server is referred to as the Component Transaction Servers (CTS) which provides an execution environment for business logic components.

Distributed Architecture Advantages:

· Scalability
· "Thinner" client
· "Zero client administration"
· Logic encapsulation
· Consistency, control, and security
· Reusability of existing components
· Position you for the web

Not all applications need to be distributed, especially if the number of users is small and you do not plan to take the application to the Web. If there is no code reuse between applications and/or if the business logic changes infrequently, you do not need a distributed architecture.

For many large applications, however, which are usually written in a variety of languages and tools with heterogeneous clients (including HTML for Web-based applications), you need a distributed architecture. You can not manage such applications in a typical two-tier environment.

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