The design of a distributed computing system

This paper describes a design for a computing system structure whose implementation should provide reliable, faiI-soft service at relativeIy Iow cost. The design reIies heavily on modularity and dynamic reconfigurability (in combination referred to as distribution) to achieve reliability. Low cost is maintainted by using standard hardware and software components, each of which handles a portion of the workload. When a component fails, its workload is assumed by the remaining components. The evolution of a particular network architecture for this computing system, i.e., a network utilizing a communication loop with hardware components connected to and distributed about the ring, is described