To get started with the example you will need jdk 1.5.0_x, where x is pretty recent (>= 15), or any release of jdk 1.6. You will also need ant 1.7.0, with ant .net plugin if you want to build csharp. You will also need microsoft .net sdk 2.0 for csharp builds. To build: > ant This will run the default target which will build both java and csharp programs. You can also use build-java or build-csharp targets to build only java or only csharp. To run java distributed map, open a cmd window and run these commands: > cd target\bin > start java -cp distmap.jar org.apache.etch.examples.distmap.MainDistributedHashTableListener > start java -cp distmap.jar org.apache.etch.examples.distmap.MainDistributedHashTableClient To run csharp distributed map: > cd target\bin > start DistMapListener.exe > start DistMapClient.exe You can mix and match the various clients and listeners.