Application components running at various sites within a replication group can now use the Replication Manager's existing TCP/IP communications infrastructure to send and process messages among themselves, using the DB_CHANNEL handle. DB_ENV->repmgr_channel() is used to create the DB_CHANNEL handle. DB_CHANNEL->send_msg() and DB_CHANNEL->send_request() are used to send sychronous and asychronous messages that are handled by the function set by DB_ENV->repmgr_msg_dispatch(). DB_CHANNEL->set_timeout() is used to configure channel time out, and DB_CHANNEL->close() closes the channel and frees resources held by it.