From: Ravi Kalakota <kalakota@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> 

DOMS provide a way of pulling diverse components together and 
managing their communications. They are aimed at addressing the 
following: 
 - A single interface to manage the complexities of a heterogeneous         
   environment 
 - A uniform framework, based on standards and extensibility, to build,     
   integrate, and deploy open distributed-computing applications
 - A method for creating location independence for client applications.

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