PROBLEMS OF COMPUTING ON THE WEB
Slim Ben Lamine, John Plaice, Peter Kropf · 1997
We discuss the concept of computing on the Web. We show that the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of the Web makes it impossible to define a fixed set of operating system functions, usable for all services. Rather, we propose that generalized software configuration techniques, based on a demand-driven technique called eduction, can be used to define versions of a Web Operating System (WOS) that can be built in an incremental manner. We illustrate this problem by examining the question of load balancing. INTRODUCTION With the rapid development of new forms and concepts of networked and mobile computing, it is increasingly clear that operating systems must evolve so that all machines in a given network can appear to be controlled by the same operating system. As a result, the world-wide interconnected networks, commonly called the Internet or the Web, could potentially be supported and managed by a giant virtual operating system (Reynolds 1996). For example, initially the World Wide W...