Security and fault-tolerance in distributed systems: an actor-based approach

The inherent complexity of real-world distributed applications makes developing and maintaining software for these systems difficult and error-prone. We describe an actor-based meta-level model to address the complexity of distributed applications. Specifically, meta-level framework allow code implementing different design concerns to be factored into separate modules-thus enabling the separate development and modification of code for different non-functional requirements such as security and fault-tolerance. This paper reviews current research based on the model and outlines some research directions.