Glossary
This is a list of terms applicable to distributed applications.
-
Abstract Data Type (ADT) is an encapsulation of a data structure and the public procedures that
manipulate that data structure into a single entity.
-
Affinity Analysis is a means of analyzing the frequency of interaction between two or more
entities.
-
Attribute is an encapsulated piece of state that is implicitly visible and remembers
procedural operations for an object.
-
Behavior is the semantic intent of an object contract.
-
Business Rules are a set, or sequence, of operations that perform services
meaningful to a business.
-
Class is the structural description of an object that includes group
management, extent, and life cycle operations for its members.
-
Client is a requester of services and/or resources.
-
Client-side is a collection of code that is nominally client or server.
However, client-designated code often services requests.
So objects (which satisfy some request) that live in
the client are client-side, and objects living in the
server are server-side.
-
Contract is an object interface coupled with all pre-conditions, post-conditions and invariants.
-
Encapsulation is an abstraction mechanism that hides data structure from public
view, except through manipulating procedures.
-
Failure Model is the set of all types and conditions under which a system (particularly a
distributed system) may fail.
-
Filter is a process that performs some fixed function on a stream from one process,
and passes it after processing to another process.
-
Granularity is an abstract scoping issue that is used to discuss objects and
their size in terms of the amount of functionality and in terms
of services they offer.
-
Implementation is the portion of a code composition that is executed.
-
Inheritance is the mechanism by which classes may be specialized from more general
classes.
-
Interface is the complete protocol used by a class for all of its messaging.
-
Invariants are the aspects of a class that are true and never vary.
-
Latency is the round trip time from request to response.
-
Method is a single request or message made available by a server.
-
Object is an instance of a class supporting encapsulation, inheritance, and
polymorphism.
-
Peer is a process that is generally a clone or at least equally capable of
both making and servicing requests.
-
Polymorphism is the ability of an object to exhibit different behavior given the
identical message.
-
Pre-conditions are those conditions that must be valid prior to method invocation.
-
Message Protocol is a message description.
-
Post-conditions are those conditions that must be valid after a method is invoked.
-
Quality of Service are resource allocation methods that may be tailored to a specific
application requirement in order to prevent lessening of the
quality of that service.
-
Server is an entity providing a service or resources.
-
Server-side
See Client-side
-
Signature is the complete description of a method that includes the message
(parameter names and types) and the response (type) or the potential
exceptional conditions that may be expected after invoking the method.
-
Three-Tier is a client-server system (two-tier) that moves the business logic into a
separate layer (tier).
-
Two-Tier is a client-server system where the business logic is contained within
the client and/or server layers (tiers).
-
Type is an abstraction used for composition that describes the underlying
properties of an entity, and as a protection mechanism used to verify
the expected consistency of such entities at compile time.