Fallacies of Distributed Computing (Oldie but Goodie)
Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz goes through the fallacies of distributed computing with panache.
What? You've never heard of them?
Well, they are
What? You've never heard of them?
Well, they are
- The network is reliable
- Latency is zero.
- Bandwidth is infinite.
- The network is secure.
- Topology doesn't change.
- There is one administrator.
- Transport cost is zero.
- The network is homogeneous
With almost 15 years since the fallacies were drafted and more than 40 years since we started building distributed systems – the characteristics and underlying problems of distributed systems remain pretty much the same. What is more alarming is that architects, designers and developers are still tempted to wave some of these problems off thinking technology solves everything.Or, to put it differently, - Architects can be stupid, alarmingly so at times.
Remember that (successful) applications evolve and grow so even if things look Ok for a while if you don't pay attention to the issues covered by the fallacies they will rear their ugly head and bite you.
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