Any individually manageable piece of CDS is called an entity. A set of commands exists for each entity. The following is a list of the entities and a description of what each entity represents: Cached Clearinghouse A cached clearinghouse is a clearinghouse that a clerk has discovered and cached. A clerk can learn about clearinghouses as a result of configuration information, advertisements received on a LAN, or during the process of finding a name. Cached Server A cached server is a server that a clerk has cached as a result of manual configuration through the control program. Child A child pointer connects a parent and child directory in a hierarchical namespace. The child pointer is stored in the parent directory and has the same name as the child directory. Clearinghouse A clearinghouse is a database containing a collection of directory replicas at a particular server. Clerk The clerk is the interface between client applications and servers. Directory A directory contains child,object and link entries that are logically stored under one name (the directory name). Link A soft link is a pointer providing an alternate name for an object entry, directory, or other soft link. Object An object entry represents a resource (for example, an application) that is named in the namespace. Replica A replica is a copy of a directory. Each copy, including the original or master, is referred to as a replica. Server A server handles lookup requests from clerks and maintains the contents of the clearinghouse or clearinghouses at its node.