DistOS 2014W Lecture 3

Questions to consider:

• What were the purposes envisioned for computer networks? How do those compare with the uses they are put to today?
• What sort of resources were shared? What resources are shared today?
• What network architecture did they envision? Do we still have the same architecture?
• What surprised you about this paper?
• What was unclear?

Group 4

    What were the purposes envisioned for computer networks? How do those compare with the uses they are put to today?

remote access to machines that have the resources users need: large databases, computing power, instruction set/non-portable software

Today, we use networks mostly for sharing data, although with services like Amazon AWS, we're starting to share computing resources again. We're also moving to support collaboration (e.g. Google Docs, GitHub, etc.).

   What sort of resources were shared? What resources are shared today?

Computing power was the key resource being shared; today, it's access to data. (See above.)

   What network architecture did they envision? Do we still have the same architecture?

Surprisingly, yes: modern networks have substantially similar architecures to the ones described in these papers. Packet-switched networks are now ubiquitous. We no longer bother with circuit-switching even for telephony, in contrast to the assumption that non-network data would continue to use the circuit-switched common-carrier network.

   What surprised you about this paper?

We were surprised by the accuracy of the predictions given how early the paper was written.

mouse in alto, resolution, bus speed: we have networks faster than their integrated buses

   What was unclear? 

Nothing significant; we're looking at these with the benefit of hindsight.