A distributed database is held on two or more machines on the network. This facility allows you to spread the components of your database physically across the network. For example, you might decide to put branch tables on the workstations, and master tables on the Head Office server.
A common way of distributing a database is to hold the base dictionary on the workstation, and the database tables on the DP4 server. The base dictionary is accessed by DP4 in the course of executing your application. In general, it is best to put commonly accessed tables on the local machine, to decrease the traffic over the network.