CS applications often require to act on other objects. Using one node, it is sufficient to know the name of this. But to interact with objects running on another node it is necessesary to know also the nodename. On the cost of flexibility, one could decide to start each object on a dedicated node only. More convenient is to get the nodename (or even the information whether the wanted object is alive!) in an automated way. This is possible by the "in use Flag Method" introduced in detail in the context of Singleton Functionality.
-- StefanGoette - 14 Sep 2005