Rochester's intelligent gateway

The University of Rochester has had several years experience in the design and implementation of a multiple-machine, multiple-network distributed system called RIG, or Rochester's Intelligent Gateway. RIG was designed as a state-of-the-art research computing environment to support a variety of distributed applications and research in distributed computing. Particular applications include computer image analysis and design automation for VLSI. Distributed systems research includes investigations into internetwork architectures, interpro-cess communication, naming, distributed file systems, distributed control, performance monitoring, exception handling, debugging, and user interfaces. RIG was designed for a collection of heterogeneous machines, interconnected by networks of varying characteristics. It represents one of the earliest and most comprehensive attempts at designing a distributed operating system and supporting network architecture from the ground up. Various aspects of the system have been presented in a number of papers. 1-10 The first half of this article will present a brief overview that is a slight idealiza-tion of the current implementation, described elsewhere, 8 and differs in several significant ways from our original notions of the system goals and design.2 The last half will emphasize qualitative and quantitative experimental results. RIG basics Hardware. The hardware environment consists of a number of local-net-based workstations connected to back-end file servers, databases, and large-scale computing resources. In particular, RIG interconnects three networks via a dual-processor gateway (see Figure 1). The bulk of the user's computational requirements are met by timesharing systems such as DEC-10/TOPS-10 and VAX/Unix, and personal computers such as Xerox Altos-16-bit minicomputers with 606 x 808 frame-buffer raster-scan displays."1 The Altos, gateway machines (Data General Eclipses), and VAX are connected via an Ethernet.12 The DEC-10 (campus network) communicates with the gateway over 9600-baud asyn-chronous and 50-kHz synchronous lines. The gateway is connected to the Arpanet as a very distant host via a 50-kHz synchronous line. Together, the gateway machines support a variety of devices: a color graphics display processor, a tape drive, an electrostatic printer-plotter, a drum scanner, various display terminals, and 900M bytes of primary disk storage. While providing access to remote computer systems, the gateway machines also support a number of basic program development services such as printing, plotting, local file storage, and text editing. In addition, they provide boot service facilities for the Altos, allowing them to be downloaded with programs stored on the gateway file system. Moreover, the gateway file system provides a central clearinghouse for RIG source files; thus, programs developed on …

[1]  David L. Mills,et al.  An overview of the distributed computer network , 1899, AFIPS '76.

[2]  Jerome A. Feldman,et al.  High level programming for distributed computing , 1979, CACM.

[3]  David Ross Cheriton.  Multi-process Structuring and the THOTH Operating System , 1978 .

[4]  Roy Levin.  Program structures for exceptional condition handling , 1977 .

[5]  Keith A. Lantz,et al.  Virtual terminal management in a multiple process environment , 1979, SOSP '79.

[6]  Karsten Schwan,et al.  StarOS, a multiprocessor operating system for the support of task forces , 1979, SOSP '79.

[7]  James E. White.  Elements of a Distributed Programming System , 1976, RFC.

[8]  Richard W. Watson.  Chapter 7. IPC interface and end-to-end (transport) protocol design issues , 1981 .

[9]  James E. Donnelley.  Components of a Network Operating System , 1979, Comput. Networks.

[10]  Michael D. Schroeder,et al.  Cooperation of mutually suspicious subsystems in a computer utility , 1972 .

[11]  J. E. Ball,et al.  Preliminary ZENO language description , 1979, SIGP.

[12]  Gene McDaniel,et al.  METRIC: A Kernel Instrumentation System for Distributed Environments. , 1977, SOSP 1977.

[13]  Brian Randell,et al.  Process Structuring , 1973, CSUR.

[14]  Anita K. Jones.  Protection Mechanisms and the Enforcement of Security Policies , 1978, Advanced Course: Operating Systems.

[15]  Clifford A. Rose,et al.  A Measurement Procedure for Queueing Network Models of Computer Systems , 1978, CSUR.

[16]  William A. Wulf,et al.  HYDRA/C.Mmp, An Experimental Computer System , 1981 .

[17]  Keith Allen Lantz.  Uniform interfaces for distributed systems , 1980 .

[18]  Brett D. Fleisch.  An architecture for pup services on a distributed operating system , 1981, OPSR.

[19]  David R. Cheriton,et al.  The Thoth system : multi-process structuring and portability , 1982 .

[20]  J. Postel.  Internetwork Protocol Approaches , 1980 .

[21]  John K. Ousterhout,et al.  Medusa: An experiment in distributed operating system structure (Summary) , 1979, SOSP '79.

[22]  山口 喜教.  RIG, Rochester's Intelligent Gateway : System Overview , 1977 .

[23]  Keith A. Lantz.  RIG, An Architecture for Distributed Systems: A Summary , 1981, Berkeley Workshop.

[24]  Barbara Liskov,et al.  On Linguistic Support for Distributed Programs , 1982, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[25]  Greg Thiel,et al.  LOCUS a network transparent, high reliability distributed system , 1981, SOSP.

[26]  Bruce Jay Nelson.  Remote procedure call , 1981 .

[27]  Forest Baskett,et al.  Task communication in DEMOS , 1977, SOSP '77.

[28]  Jack C. Wileden,et al.  A description scheme to aid the design of collections of concurrent processes , 1978, AFIPS National Computer Conference.

[29]  Robert E. Millstein.  The National Software Works: A distributed processing system , 1977, ACM '77.

[30]  Robert H. Thomas,et al.  A resource sharing executive for the ARPANET , 1973, AFIPS National Computer Conference.

[31]  H. Zimmermann,et al.  OSI Reference Model - The ISO Model of Architecture for Open Systems Interconnection , 1980, IEEE Transactions on Communications.

[32]  D. L. Parnas,et al.  On the criteria to be used in decomposing systems into modules , 1972, Software Pioneers.

[33]  David Lorge Parnas,et al.  On a 'Buzzword': Hierarchical Structure , 2001, IFIP Congress.

[34]  Richard W. Watson.  IPC Interface and End-to-End Protocols , 1980, Advanced Course: Distributed Systems.

[35]  James E. White.  A high-level framework for network-based resource sharing , 1976, AFIPS '76.

[36]  Ilya Gertner.  Performance evaluation of communicating processes , 1979, SIGMETRICS Perform. Evaluation Rev..

[37]  David R. Cheriton,et al.  Thoth, a portable real-time operating system , 1979, CACM.

[38]  George G. Robertson,et al.  Accent: A communication oriented network operating system kernel , 1981, SOSP.

[39]  Anita K. Jones.  The Object Model: A Conceptual Tool for Structuring Software , 1978, Operating Systems.

[40]  Gene McDaniel.  Metric (Extended Abstract): A kernel instrumentation system for distributed environments , 1977, SOSP '77.

[41]  Edward Tucker Smith.  Debugging techniques for communicating, loosely-coupled processes , 1982 .

[42]  Marvin H. Solomon,et al.  The Roscoe distributed operating system , 1979, SOSP '79.

[43]  Helen M. Wood,et al.  Network operating systems - An implementation approach , 1978, AFIPS National Computer Conference.

[44]  Alan Snyder,et al.  Exception Handling in CLU , 1979, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[45]  Hans-Jürgen Kugler,et al.  Abstract machines modelling network control systems , 1979, OPSR.

[46]  Jerome A. Feldman,et al.  Language constructs and support systems for distributed computing , 1982, PODC '82.

[47]  Gordon Bell,et al.  Ethernet: Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer Networks , 1976 .