This report proposes an architectural framework for the design and implementation of a Distributed Database Management System which integrates Java and the Java Runtime Environment with the static set of operations found in a traditional database execution engine. With such a system, we intend to study the benefits of mobility of DBMS code (functionality shipping). This functionality shipping occurs at several levels, namely the query (i.e. predicates), executor (i.e. join operator) and access methods (i.e. index scan) levels.