Internet Locus: Extending transparency to an Internet environment

Network transparency refers to the ability of a distributed system to hide machine boundaries from people and application programs; i.e. all resources are accessed in the same manner, independent of their locations. It is demonstrated that transparency across a long-haul network is both highly desirable and technically feasible. A case study of the transparent, distributed operating system Locus, extended to operate transparently across an internet system that includes long-haul links, is discussed at length. New protocols, distributed cache management, and process execution site selection are all used to achieve the results reported.