Motivation: Service Demands
Emergence of a true information infrastructure
- today: e-commerce, online database services, online backup, search engines, and web servers
- tomorrow: more of above (with ever-growing datasets), plus thin-client/PDA infrastructure support
- these services have different needs than traditionally fault-tolerant services (ATMs, telephone switch, ...)
- rapid software evolution
- unpredictable, wildly fluctuating demand and user base
- often must incorporate low-cost, off-the-shelf HW and SW components