service protocol. An external gateway module may then take control of the object, and
incorporate it into some other directory space (or spaces). The external gateway module
may reside in another device, such as a personal computer or office server.
server, on a two-node network. Using TOAD, the PC can discover the service objects
in the printer. When the printer is connected to a larger network, it can operate as part
of a complex directory service, without the storms of advertising traffic that afflict many
other network service architectures. Another option is to shut down TOAD entirely in a
large network, putting an alternative advertising and discovery scheme in the printer
itself.
way for one process to locate the other processes is to use the standard name service
and find a process with a given name. This may not be practical for any of several
reasons: the process name might not be unique, there may be multiple parallel processes
of a given kind, a name service may not be available or suitable, and process properties
might not be available for lookup.
name service mechanisms are inadequate or inappropriate. In cases where several
processes implement the same function (in a parallel- or multi-processing environment),
properties can be used to select the process with the lowest current load or lowest
predicted response time. Properties can also be used to locate a process associated with
a given client or request.
protocol at a nominal charge. The best future for TOAD would be widespread adoption, so
there are no royalties charged.
the name “TOAD” is not used with non-compliant implementations.