The Role Of ADS In Network Computing
Liba Svobodova, Hendrik Berndt, Thomas Magedanz, H. Nakanishi, Stefano Zatti · 2005
Network computing is an emerging paradigm that promises to extend computing and information access capabilities transparently beyond the domain of a specific organization and enable unprecedented collaboration and business transactions in a global open network environment. It also challenges the present client-server paradigm, which has proven to be rather expensive, owing to the high cost of maintaining and managing individual workstations and PCs. Network computing is closely coupled with the Internet and World Wide Web explosion. The HTTP-based browser is becoming a standard open universal interface not just for WWW browsing, but for access to corporate databases, for remote system/network management, communication and collaboration, workflow management, and for other services and applications. The Network Computer (NC) is viewed by many as the successor of the familiar PC, that will get most of the needed software and services on demand from the network. To realize the vision of network computing, powerful, robust, and efficient “backend” infrastructure is required to provide such applications and services within an organization, across domains, and on the global scale. What kind of role does the autonomous distributed system (ADS) paradigm play in network computing? Are these two different worlds? Are they complementary? Or, is ADS an inseparable part of or a base for the fledging network computing? The individual panelists address these questions from the point of view of different environments and applications. They discuss technologies that support these paradigms and form a bridge between them.