a modern alternative to object middleware such as CORBA™ or COM/DCOM/COM+. Ice is easy to learn, yet provides a powerful network infrastructure for demanding technical applications.
an event-driven networking framework supports TCP, UDP, SSL/TLS, multicast, Unix sockets, a large number of protocols (including HTTP, NNTP, IMAP, SSH, IRC, FTP, and others)
a robust, somewhat scalable, cross-platform client-server messaging system for dynamic distributed applications that runs under any POSIX-compliant operating system.