The Network Computing System (NCS) was an implementation of the Network Computing Architecture (NCA). It was created at Apollo Computer in the 1980s. It comprised a set of tools for implementing distributed software applications, or distributed computing. The three principal components of NCS were a runtime environment for remote procedure calls, a network interface definition language (NIDL) compiler, and a location broker service. The location broker differentiated NCS from similar offerings, such as the rival Open Network Computing technology from Sun Microsystems, by permitting services to be distributed in a dynamic fashion and offering the possibility of "location independence".