a software bridge is introduced between a client and a server in a client - server distributed computing environment . the bridge presents the interface of a server to a client and the interface of a client to a server . the bridge is used for monitoring or logging of requests and associated data flowing between the client and the server , useful for example in problem determination . the bridge is also used for workload balancing between servers . it can further be used to reduce network connectivity between clients and servers . all of these advantages can be achieved without any modifications to existing client or server code .