On Distributed Communications Series
V. History, Alternative Approaches, and Comparisons
Preface
This Memorandum is one in a series of eleven RAND Memoranda detailing the Distributed Adaptive Message Block Network, a proposed digital data communications system based on a distributed network concept, as presented in Vol. I in the series.[1] Various other items in the series deal with specific features of the concept, results of experimental modelings, engineering design considerations, and background and future implications.
The series, entitled On Distributed Communications, is a part of The RAND Corporation's continuing program of research under U.S. Air Force Project RAND, and is related to research in the field of command and control and in governmental and military planning and policy making.
The present Memorandum, the fifth in the series, is primarily a background paper acknowledging the efforts of people in many fields working toward the development of large communications systems where system reliability and survivability are mandatory. As these requirements be-come increasingly stringent, we are forced to consider new and more complicated Systems than we might otherwise prefer.
In a very short period of time--within the past decade--the research effort devoted to these ends has developed from analyses of how a mechanical mouse might find his way out of a maze, to suggestions of the design of an all-electronic world-wide communications system.
Because this is a new field of study, its terminology has been borrowed from different specialties and lacks consistency. This Memorandum should be useful to one wishing to trace some of the related research efforts, focusing upon differences and their definitions. It should also be of interest to military planners in aiding them to understand the subtle differences between several systems, all called "distributed," but which exhibit completely different properties.
This Memorandum forms a bridge between the previous items in the series, concerned with the system concept and early modeling studies, and the remaining volumes, which detail the actual design and implementation of a network of the type proposed.
[1]A list of all items in the series is found on p. 49.
Summary
I. Introduction
II. The Distributed Network Concept
III. Early History
IV. Specific Hardware Proposals
V. Conclusions
Appendix A. Summary Charts
Appendix B. The DDD System
List of Publications in the Series