Scale in Distributed Systems (1994)
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| Venue: | Readings in Distributed Computing Systems |
| Citations: | 46 - 1 self |
BibTeX
@INPROCEEDINGS{Neuman94scalein,
author = {B. Clifford Neuman},
title = {Scale in Distributed Systems},
booktitle = {Readings in Distributed Computing Systems},
year = {1994},
pages = {463--489},
publisher = {IEEE Computer Society Press}
}
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Abstract
In recent years, scale has become a factor of increasing importance in the design of distributed systems. The scale of a system has three dimensions: numerical, geographical, and administrative. The numerical dimension consists of the number of users of the system, and the number of objects and services encompassed. The geographical dimension consists of the distance over which the system is scattered. The administrative dimension consists of the number of organizations that exert control over pieces of the system. The three dimensions of scale affect distributed systems in many ways. Among the affected components are naming, authentication, authorization, accounting, communication, the use of remote resources, and the mechanisms by which users view the system. Scale affects reliability: as a system scales numerically, the likelihood that some host will be down increases; as it scales geographically, the likelihood that all hosts can communicate will decrease. Scale also affects perfor...
