Overview - DCE Technology Components

· DCE Threads

· DCE Remote Procedure Call

· DCE Directory Service

· DCE Distributed Time Service

· DCE Security Service

· DCE Distributed File Service

The DCE components fall into two general categories: distributed programming facilities and distributed services. The DCE Threads and RPC components are distributed programming facilities, which include libraries that implement application programming interfaces (APIs) and program development tools.

The remaining DCE components are distributed services. These components consist in part of a daemon, or server process, that runs continuously on a machine and responds to requests sent over the network. They are equipped with administrative subcomponents to manage the service. They also have APIs through which a programmer can access the server.

In general, application programmers deal mostly with the distributed programming facilities: DCE Threads and RPC. Although the distributed services also have APIs for accessing them, the programmer often uses distributed services only indirectly through the RPC facility, which in turn uses the distributed services' APIs. System administrators, on the other hand, deal mostly with the distributed services since they have significant management requirements.

There are also facilities that do not fall under a specific component, but perform services common to multiple components. Among these facilities are the following:

· Host Services

· Application Message Service

· Serviceability

· Backing Store Databases

· DCE Control Program (dcecp)

This topic contains topics devoted to each of the technology components. Each of these topics starts with an overview of its technology, along with a description of the pieces that constitute the technology. The topics then describe their technologies from the perspective of different types of users such as the end user's viewpoint, how the programmer develops an application with the technology, and how the administrator manages the technology. Finally, the topics each explain how their technology works, and they describe important benefits or features of the particular technology. DCE Cross-Component Facilities gives an overview of the cross-technology facilities. The DCE Control Program (dcecp) describes the DCE administrative control program (dcecp). The last topic of this topic, Two DCE Application Samples, gives an example of a very simple distributed application, describing the process for developing, installing, and running it.