Editing Distributed Computing Environment (section)

{{more citations needed|date=December 2011}}
The '''Distributed Computing Environment''' ('''DCE''') is a [[software system]] developed in the early 1990s from the work of the [[Open Software Foundation]] (OSF), a consortium founded in 1988 that included [[Apollo Computer]] (part of [[Hewlett-Packard]] from 1989), [[IBM]], [[Digital Equipment Corporation]], and others.<ref name="JiaZhou2004">{{cite book|author1=Weijia Jia|author2=Wanlei Zhou|title=Distributed Network Systems: From Concepts to Implementations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_pYyEgj0fX8C&pg=PA135|date=15 December 2004|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-0-387-23839-5|page=135}}</ref><ref name="SINHA1998">{{cite book|author=PRADEEP K. SINHA|title=DISTRIBUTED OPERATING SYSTEMS: CONCEPTS AND DESIGN|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SewHKWac2I4C&pg=PA35|date=1 January 1998|publisher=PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.|isbn=978-81-203-1380-4|page=35}}</ref> The DCE supplies a [[software framework|framework]] and a toolkit for developing [[client/server]] applications.<ref name="Jacobsen2003">{{cite book|author=Hans-Arno Jacobsen|title=Distributed Infrastructure Support for Electronic Commerce Applications|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9W8QkfzD0VYC&pg=PA14|date=30 November 2003|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-1-4020-7648-0|page=14}}</ref> The framework includes:

* a [[remote procedure call]] (RPC) mechanism<ref name="change" /> known as [[DCE/RPC]]
* a naming ([[directory service|directory]]) service<ref name="change" />
* a time service<ref name="change" />
* an [[authentication]] service<ref name="change" />
* a [[distributed file system]] (DFS)<ref name="change" /> known as [[DCE Distributed File System|DCE/DFS]]
The DCE did not achieve commercial success.

As of 1995, all major computer hardware vendors had an implementation of DCE, seen as an advantage compared to alternatives like [[CORBA]] which all had more limited support.<ref name="change" />{{rp|13}}