Developing IP applications is important but troublesome in practice since reusable components are usually system-call-level service routines. It becomes more and more indispensable in this network generation. Under the concept that an IP application consists of distributed objects communicating with one another, we defined an architecture and designed a framework for IP applications. The architecture is a 4-layered model whose layers are communication, ORB (object request broker), state transition, and application. The communication layer is for implementing virtual circuit and datagram communication. The ORB layer is a platform for message exchange over a network. The state transition layer packs automata extracted from a client and a server. The application layer includes objects handling client user interface and server database. Based on the architecture, we designed a framework for the state transition and the application layer. The framework for the state transition layer implements client and server automata. User-interface is categorized into three types: OS command, subcommand, and browser, and then a framework for each type is designed. A database framework provides mechanisms to serve its object-oriented interface. Through the implementation of several IP applications using prototype version of the framework, usefulness of the architecture and the framework is demonstrated.