Delayed delivery of query results or other data from a federated server to a federated client until such information is needed

An apparatus for retrieving data from one or more datastores, comprising:

• a client computer connected to a server computer;
• a server computer having one or more datastores coupled thereto;
• and
• one or more computer programs of the computers, for:
• at the client computer,
• transmitting a search request to the server computer;
• and
• generating a client collection for use in retrieving physical data from the server computer;
• and
• at the server computer, generating a server collection with the same structure as the client collection, for use in retrieving the physical data, from the one or more datastores, based on the search request;
• wherein:
• the generating of the client collection is performed without providing the client collection the physical data,
• the generating of the server collection is performed so as to include retrieving at least part of the physical data from the one or more datastores, the physical data being represented by an object oriented (OO) object, and
• the client collection is provided with a part of the physical data, from the server collection, only when the part of the physical data is requested using the client collection.

An article of manufacture comprising a program storage medium readable by a client computer and embodying one or more instructions executable by the client computer to perform method steps for retrieving data from one or more datastores connected to a server computer, the method comprising the steps of:

• at the client computer,
• transmitting a search request to the server computer;
• and
• generating a client collection for use in retrieving physical data from the server computer;
• and
• at the server computer, generating a server collection with the same structure as the client collection, for use in retrieving the physical data, from the one or more datastores, based on the search request;
• wherein:
• the generating of the client collection is performed without providing the client collection the physical data,
• the generating of the server collection is performed so as to include retrieving at least part of the physical data from the one or more datastores, the physical data being represented by an object oriented (OO) object, and
• the client collection is provided with a part of the physical data, from the server collection, only when the part of the physical data is requested using the client collection.