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The Network is Reliable: An informal survey of real-world communications failures

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Kyle KingsburyAuthors Info & Claims

Queue, Volume 12, Issue 7

Pages 20 - 32

https://doi.org/10.1145/2639988.2655736

Published: 08 July 2014 Publication History

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Abstract

The network is reliable tops Peter Deutsch’s classic list, "Eight fallacies of distributed computing", "all [of which] prove to be false in the long run and all [of which] cause big trouble and painful learning experiences." Accounting for and understanding the implications of network behavior is key to designing robust distributed programs; in fact, six of Deutsch’s "fallacies" directly pertain to limitations on networked communications. This should be unsurprising: the ability (and often requirement) to communicate over a shared channel is a defining characteristic of distributed programs, and many of the key results in the field pertain to the possibility and impossibility of performing distributed computations under particular sets of network conditions.

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The Network is Reliable: An informal survey of real-world communications failures

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cover image Queue

Queue Volume 12, Issue 7

Practice

July 2014

43 pages

ISSN:1542-7730

EISSN:1542-7749

DOI:10.1145/2639988

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 08 July 2014

Published in QUEUE Volume 12, Issue 7

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Cited By

Amaro SMatos MSchiavoni V(2025)Kollaps: Decentralized and Efficient Network Emulation for Large-Scale SystemsIEEE Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2024.347805033:1(35-50)Online publication date: Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1109/TNET.2024.3478050
Barbosa RFonseca JAraújo MCorujo D(2024)Vinia: Voice-enabled intent-based networking for industrial automationComputer Science and Information Systems10.2298/CSIS230213002B21:1(395-418)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS230213002B
Gessert FWingerath WRitter NGessert FWingerath WRitter N(2024)Die NoSQL-Toolbox: Die NoSQL-Landschaft im ÜberblickSchnelles und skalierbares Cloud-Datenmanagement10.1007/978-3-031-54388-3_8(189-205)Online publication date: 3-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54388-3_8
Qunaibi SUdayashankar SAl-Kiswany S(2023)CASPR: Connectivity-Aware Scheduling for Partition Resilience2023 42nd International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS)10.1109/SRDS60354.2023.00017(70-81)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/SRDS60354.2023.00017
Qian MCui LZhang XTso FDeng Y(2022)dDrops: Detecting silent packet drops on programmable data planeComputer Networks10.1016/j.comnet.2022.109171214(109171)Online publication date: Sep-2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2022.109171
Rikhotso VVelempini M(2022)The Evaluation of the Two Detection Algorithms for Distributed Denial of Service AttackAd Hoc Networks and Tools for IT10.1007/978-3-030-98005-4_5(63-71)Online publication date: 27-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98005-4_5
Gouveia PNeves JSegarra CLiechti LIssa SSchiavoni VMatos MBilas AMagoutis KMarkatos EKostic DSeltzer M(2020)KollapsProceedings of the Fifteenth European Conference on Computer Systems10.1145/3342195.3387540(1-16)Online publication date: 15-Apr-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3342195.3387540
Antoniadis KDidona DGuerraoui RZwaenepoel W(2020)The Impossibility of Fast Transactions2020 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS)10.1109/IPDPS47924.2020.00120(1143-1154)Online publication date: May-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/IPDPS47924.2020.00120
Belocchi GCardellini VCammarano ABianchi G(2020)Paxos in the NIC: Hardware Acceleration of Distributed Consensus Protocols2020 16th International Conference on the Design of Reliable Communication Networks DRCN 202010.1109/DRCN48652.2020.1570611009(1-6)Online publication date: Mar-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/DRCN48652.2020.1570611009
Takita YMiyabe MTomonaga HOguchi N(2020)Scalable Impact Range Detection against Newly Added Rules for Smart Network Verification2020 IEEE 44th Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC)10.1109/COMPSAC48688.2020.00-47(1471-1476)Online publication date: Jul-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/COMPSAC48688.2020.00-47
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