The Fallacies of Distributed Computing
The Fallacies of Distributed Computing on Wikipedia
Also known as Fallacies of Networked Computing, the Fallacies are a list of conjectures (or beliefs) about distributed computing, which can lead to failures in software development. The assumptions 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
The first four items were listed by Bill Joy and Tom Lyon around 1991 and first classified by James Gosling as the "Fallacies of Networked Computing". L. Peter Deutsch added the 5th, 6th and 7th fallacies. In the late 90's Gosling added the 8th fallacy.
The group were inspired by what was happening at the time inside Sun Microsystems.
These fallacies should be considered carefully when designing code which is resilient; assuming any of these fallacies can lead to flawed logic which fails to deal with the realities and complexities of distributed systems.
See also: