CST(26)-Functions of NOS

One of the functions of NOS is to make the physical location of resources transparent to an application. Early NOS were in the business of virtualising file and print resources and redirecting them to LAN based file and print servers. The NOS provided agents on the local machines i.e. the requesters that intercepted call for resources and redirected them to servers on the LAN. The only way an application can find the difference between a local resource and a remote resource was from a pathname, which included its machine name. The NOS thus extends the local OS reach across the network