Thesis-2000-Papaioannou.pdf (16.84 MB)
On the structuring of distributed systems : the argument for mobility
thesis
posted on 2017-06-22, 15:54 authored by Todd PapaioannouThe last decade has seen an explosion in the growth and use of the Internet. Rapidly
evolving network and computer technology, coupled with the exponential growth of
services and information available on the Internet, is heralding in a new era of
ubiquitous computing. Hundreds of millions of people will soon have pervasive
access to a huge amount of information, which they will be able to access through a
plethora of diverse computational devices. These devices are no longer isolated
number crunching machines; rather they are on our desks, on our wrists, in our
clothes, embedded in our cars, phones and even washing machines. These computers
are constantly communicating with each other via LANs, Intranets, the Internet, and
through wireless networks, in which the size and topology of the network is
constantly changing. Over this hardware substrate we are attempting to architect new
types of distributed system, ones that are able to adapt to changing qualities and
location of service. Traditional theories and techniques for building distributed
systems are being challenged. In this new era of massively distributed computing we
require new paradigms for building distributed systems.
This thesis is concerned with how we structure distributed systems. In Part I, we trace
the emergence and evolution of computing abstractions and build a philosophical
argument supporting mobile code, contrasting it with traditional distribution
abstractions. Further, we assert the belief that the abstractions used in traditional
distributed systems are flawed, and are not suited to the underlying hardware substrate
on which contemporary global networks are built. In Part U, we describe the
experimental work and subsequent evaluation that constitutes the first steps taken to
validate the arguments of Part I.
History
School
- Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering
Publisher
© Todd PapaioannouPublisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2000Notes
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.Language
- en