38.27 Summary

This chapter provided a detailed discussion of IceGrid, including the modifica­tions required to incorporate IceGrid into client and server applications, as well as the configuration and administration of IceGrid components. Once you under­stand the basic concepts on which IceGrid is founded, you quickly begin to appre­ciate the flexibility, power, and convenience of IceGrid’s capabilities:

• Replication, load balancing, and automatic server activation increase reli­ability and make more efficient use of processing resources.

• The location service simplifies administrative requirements and minimizes coupling between clients and servers.

• Deploying an application can be done using easily-understood, reusable XML files, or interactively using a graphical client.

• Distributing and updating executables, dependent libraries and other files on all nodes can be automated and managed remotely.

In short, IceGrid provides the tools you need to develop robust, enterprise-class Ice applications.