Functions to be distributed
Client/server model

An interactive application calls on system functions that are commonly referred to as "system services". For simplicity's sake, we can reduce these functions to two main families:

• data access functions provided by file access methods or generalized database systems (DBMS);

• functions for presenting information on the end-user terminal, which can be graphical.

Analysis of the structure of interactive applications, sometimes referred to as application architecture (figure 6 ), shows that an application is made up of four groups of functions, which will be detailed in the following paragraphs:

• the functions that...