End-To-End Arguments In System Design-英文文献.pdfVIP

END-TO-END ARGUMENTS IN SYSTEM DESIGN * J.H. Saltzer, D.P. Reed and D.D. Clark M.I.T. Laboratory for Computer Science This paper presents a design principle that helps guide placement of functions among the modules of a distributed computer system. The principle, called the end-to-end argument, suggests that functions placed at low levels of a system may be redundant or of little value when compared with the cost of providing them at that low level. Examples discussed in the paper include bit error recovery, security using encryption, duplicate message suppression, recovery from system crashes, and delivery acknowledgement. Low level mechanisms to support these functions are justified only as performance enhancements. Introduction Choosing the proper boundaries between functions is perhaps the primary activity of the computer system designer. Design principles that provide guidance in this choice of function placement are among the most important tools of a system designer. This paper discusses one class of function placement argument that has been used for many years with neither explicit recognition nor much conviction. However, the emergence of the data communication network as a computer system component has sharpened this line of function placement argument by making more apparent the situations in which and reasons why it applies. This paper articulates the argument explicitly, so as to examine its nature and to see how general it really is. The argument appeals to application requirements, and provides a rationale for moving function upward in a layered system, closer to the application that uses the function. We begin by considering the communication networ