Factors affecting the performance of distributed applications

Abstract

A major reason for the rarity of distributed applications, despite the proliferation of networks, is the sensitivity of their performance to various aspects of the network environment. Contrary to much popular opinion, we demonstrate that CPU speed remains the predominant factor. With respect to network issues, we focus on two approaches to performance enhancement: (1) Improving the performance of reliable, byte-stream protocols such as TCP; (2) the use of high-level protocols that reduce the frequency and volume of communication.