It Just Works

It Just Works

INTRODUCTION

VISION
STATEMENT

THE PLATFORM
IS THE WEB

LOCATION
INDEPENDENCE

BANDWIDTH
TOLERANCE

EASY DATA
RETRIEVAL

YOU CAN TRUST
IT

IT JUST WORKS

The negative side of distributed systems is the phenomenon where some computer that you've never heard of can now stop you from getting your work done. We're talking here about a world-scale distributed system. Every character that a user sees on the PC screen in his hotel room will be the result of the cooperation of tens or even hundreds of computers.

From the point of view of system design, this means that mission-critical systems should be designed to allow for redundancy techniques. This can range from designing networks with redundant paths and using RAID disk arrays, through replicated file system technology, to the ability to let the user get on with his work even when detached from the global internet (either because of failure, or because the airline omitted to provide a T1 line to your seat).

From the point of view of the system manager, this means more choices: he must decide how much redundancy he needs, and how much to pay for.