Amoeba: a distributed operating system for the 1990s

A description is given of the Amoeba distributed operating system, which appears to users as a centralized system but has the speed, fault tolerance, security safeguards, and flexibility required for the 1990s. The Amoeba software is based on objects. Objects are managed by server processes and name...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computer (Long Beach, Calif.) Calif.), 1990-05, Vol.23 (5), p.44-53
Main Authors: Mullender, S.J., van Rossum, G., Tananbaum, A.S., van Renesse, R., van Staveren, H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Availability
Bridges
Computer science
Fault tolerant systems
File servers
File systems
Hardware
Mathematics
Operating systems
Workstations
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Summary:A description is given of the Amoeba distributed operating system, which appears to users as a centralized system but has the speed, fault tolerance, security safeguards, and flexibility required for the 1990s. The Amoeba software is based on objects. Objects are managed by server processes and named using capabilities chosen randomly from a sparse name space. Amoeba has a unique, fast file system split into two parts: the bullet service stores immutable files contiguously on the disk; the directory service gives capabilities symbolic names and handles replication and atomicity, eliminating the need for a separate transaction management system. To bridge the gap with existing systems, Amoeba has a Unix emulation facility consisting of a library of Unix system call routines that make calls to the various Amoeba server processes.< >
ISSN:0018-9162
1558-0814
DOI:10.1109/2.53354