We are faced today with the confluence of antagonistic aims, when designing
and deploying distributed applications,
such as uncertainty and predictability. Uncertainty is a common denominator of
current systems: uncertain synchrony,
fault model, and even topology. However, systems are required to fulfil more and
more demanding goals which require predictability under several forms, e.g.,
timeliness, trustworthiness. This paper introduces a new design philosophy for
distributed systems, based on the existence of architectural constructs with
privileged properties- wormholes- which endow systems with the capability of
evading the uncertainty of the environment for certain crucial steps of their
operation where predictability is required. Recently, we have tested this
philosophy by studying and prototyping two incarnations of distributed systems
with wormholes, which we also report here.
@incollection{Ver:fudico-book03,
author = "Paulo Ver\'{\i}ssimo",
title = "Uncertainty and predictability: Can they be
reconciled?",
booktitle = "Future Directions in Distributed Computing",
pages = "-",
publisher = "Springer-Verlag LNCS 2584",
month = "May",
year = 2003
}
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