Integrating the distributed system models (Q2706057)

The two types of classical models of distributed systems deal separately with the two main communication disciplines, message-passing and variable sharing. In shared-variable models, a system runs in shared memory, while in message-passing ones, in distributed memory. The author argues that shared memory is not necessary for shared-variable communication. Processes traveling among processors can communicate by shared-variables in local memories of the processors. Therefore, it is possible to create an integrated model of distributed memory in which the two communication disciplines coexist. The integrated model, as a common platform for the two main communication disciplines is of significant importance in the distributed system theory. In this model, the message-passing and share-variable versions of a distributed system are its two decompositions into sequential processes.