Upon receiving the client request from the underlying daemon, the dispatcher determines which cartridge needs to handle the request by using the naming service system cartridge. It then authenticates the request using the authentication service system cartridge . Once authenticated, the dispatcher obtains an instance of the cartridge that will handle the request from the resource manager system cartridge. Finally, it dispatches the request for execution to that cartridge by calling the execution manager system cartridge. In the framework provided by the WRB, all services be they application or system services, can be structured as one or more cartridges.
Cartridges are thus central to the framework.
In this section we describe various aspects related to cartridges. A cartridge forms the basic unit of distribution in the system. Thus there needs to be a uniform way of naming cartridges. Cartridges are named using URL's. A cartridge name has two parts.