## Overview - The DCE Backing Store

This topic describes the backing store library that DCE provides for the convenience of programmers who are writing DCE servers. A backing store is a persistent database or persistent object store from which typed data can be stored and retrieved by a key.

Note: Sometimes the backing store is called a database. For instance, the associated IDL file is dce/database.idl, and the name of the backing store routines begin with dce_db_. The backing store is, however, not a full-fledged database in the conventional sense, and it has no support for SQL or for any other query system.

Servers generally need to manage several objects. Good design often requires that the state of the objects be maintained over sequential instances of a particular server. For example, the ACLs used by a server should not need to be recalculated each time the system is rebooted. The backing store interface provides a way to store, into a file, any data that can be described with IDL so that it can persist across instances of software that run from time to time. For example, the ACL library uses the backing store library. The backing store routines can be used in servers, in clients or in standalone programs that do not involve remote procedure calls (RPCs). Backing store data should not be used for sharing data between processes.

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