(1) See
transparent network.
(2) Reading from and writing to resources on the network (folders, printers, etc.) as if they were attached locally. Either built into the operating system or a separate file sharing component, network transparency implies that there is no additional effort required by the user or by the application to access a remote device than a local one. Even a database distributed throughout the network is presented as a single resource. See
file sharing protocol and
distributed database.