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| <HTML> |
| <BODY> |
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| <P>Provides information about, access to, and common tools for GemFire |
| distributed systems. When a program wishes to access distributed dtaa |
| data stored in GemFire, it first creates a {@link |
| org.apache.geode.distributed.DistributedSystem} that will connect |
| to the distributed system. GemFire provides two means of discovering |
| the other members in a distributed group. The first uses IP multicast |
| to broadcast a message to all members that listen on a given <A |
| href="DistributedSystem.html#mcast-port"/>port</A> and <A |
| href="DistributedSystem.html#mcast-address">address</A>. The second |
| method of discovery uses special VMs called {@linkplain |
| org.apache.geode.distributed.Locator "locators"} to keep track of |
| the members of the distributed system. Each locator is identified by |
| a host/port pair that is <A |
| href="DistributedSystem.html#locators">specified</A> when connecting |
| to the distributed system.</P> |
| |
| </BODY> |
| </HTML> |