Management of network distributed agents in a distributed computing environment

摘要

A method and system for providing a single access point for the resources of application programs distributed within a network. The single access point is provided via a master object comprising an application identification list and a plurality of application procedure interfaces. Each of the application programs has an associated agent for managing the resources of the associated application program. These agents manage the resources using a subset of the plurality of application procedure interfaces of the master object. The application identification list of the master object is used for storing the binding handle of the agent as well as the identification for the associated application. A client or user accesses the resources of a particular application program by specifying the identification of the application program and the required action to be taken by the application program to the master object. The master object uses this information to search the application identification list for a matching application identification, and after finding one, thereafter invoking the corresponding application procedure interface in the agent identified by the matching binding handle. Thus, invoking the required resource of the application program to perform the requested action.