proposal for a shared resource computing utility
This paper presents the current results of an investigation into the design of shared resource computing systems. A general and highly flexible system organization is described which incorporates great potential for fault tolerance. Some of the operating system functions required by such a system are sketched and the question of efficiently exploiting concurrency within a single job is addressed. A user environment is described in which the type of system outlined provides an economically attractive alternative to present approaches. A major goal of the current investigation is to better define shared resource organizations and the environments in which their use can be justified on grounds of efficiency and reliability.
computing utility shared resource computer system fault-tolerant computer system parallel computational structure mimd computer system