A general approach to functionally distributed computer architecture
A. Reszka, M.J. Gonzalez · ACM SIGIR Forum · 1976
It is shown in this paper that in a computer organization which is based on partitioning functionally interrelated hardware and software components together into functionally independent nodes, the interfunctional overhead activity can be reduced to a minimum. The reduction of the interfunctional overhead activity, which is the main contributor to poor system performance, results in a corresponding increase in system performance. In addition it is shown that in a functionally distributed system organization there exists a sequential job-shop or pipeline like flow of information (data and supervisory overhead) within the computer system which is essentially application independent. It is this type of flow that introduces a basic structure into the system which is practically non-existent in a centralized system architecture.In summary, the functionally distributed computer architecture proposed in this paper is based on a structured flow of blocks of information with a minimum of supervisory overhead through functionally independent but sequentially cooperating nodes. It is shown that this type of organization produces optimal system performance, i.e., response time, throughput and system availability.