Fallacies of distributed computing

The Fallacies of Distributed Computing are a set of common but flawed assumptions made by programmers when first developing distributed applications. The fallacies are summarized as follows [1]:

1. The network is reliable.
2. Latency is zero.
3. Bandwidth is infinite.
4. The network is secure.
5. Topology doesn't change.
6. There is one administrator.
7. Transport cost is zero.
8. The network is homogeneous.

History

The list of fallacies generally came about at Sun Microsystems. Peter Deutsch, one of the original Sun "Fellows," is credited with penning the first seven fallacies in 1994; however, Bill Joy and Tom Lyon had already identified the first four as "The Fallacies of Networked Computing" [2] (the article claims "Dave Lyon," but this is considered a mistake). Around 1997, James Gosling, another Sun Fellow and the inventor of Java, added the eighth fallacy.

See also

• JINI - a distributed systems infrastructure designed to avoid these fallacies.