1.3.6 Reference Counts

The DCOM Remote Protocol uses reference counts to manage object lifetimes. Each interface on an object has an associated reference count that governs its lifetime. There are two types of reference counts associated with an interface: public references and private references. The sole distinction between public and private references is that private references can be released only by the client identity that requested them.

To ensure that object resources are recovered in the event of machine failures or network failures, the DCOM Remote Protocol incorporates a garbage collection mechanism. The mechanism is based on keep-alive pinging, which allows a client to maintain the lifetimes of its object references. If an object server fails to receive pings for an object, then eventually the object server reclaims the object. For details, see sections 3.2.6.1, 3.1.1.6.2, and 3.1.2.6.