Abstract: The invention proposes a method of defining and generating cooperating object structures for accessing Business Applications (BAs) which were not built upon the principles of object orientation (OO) in an OO manner. One step of the method is targeted at the definition of true Business Object (BO) classes with a unique meaning as entities or concepts in terms of the underlying business as supported by the BA. As the BAs process the business relevant data, their spectrum of the input and output parameters serve to define the BO Attributes (BOAs) of the individual BO classes. A further step of the method is the encapsulation of the individual BAs within Transactional Object (TO) classes for controlling and executing the BAs. TO instances are able to autonomously extract BOA values from the BO instances to assemble the input parameters for BA execution. The TO instances are also endowed to process the output parameters as returned by the BA to materialize BOs, i.e.

Abstract: A system is described in which a local task (415) running on a local computer (400) can use a remote task (430) running on a remote computer (405). The local task (415) firstly establishes a conversation between a local data transmission agent (410) in the local computer (400) and a remote data transmission agent (420) in the remote computer (405). This conversation is assigned a handle (XmitHandle). The local task (415) can then use this handle (XmitHandle) to call tasks (430) running on the remote computer (405). Data is passed between the local task (415) and the local data transmission agent (410) by the use of a shared memory buffer. Data is similarly passed between the remote, task (430) and the remote data transmission agent (420) by the use of a shared memory buffer. The local (410) and remote (420) data transmission agent are connected together in a network which is preferably an SNA network.