Internet as a Dataflow Computer

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel dataflow architecture called DFNET (DataFlow architecture on the interNET), which realizes a scalable dynamic dataflow computer on a packet switching network. A vast amount of research on dataflow computers has been extensively performed during, in particular, 1970s and 1980s as a promising approach for realizing very high-speed computers. In spite of the large amount of expectations, success of dataflow computer researches is quite limited. The objective of this paper is to present the concept of a scalable and extensible dataflow architecture on a packet switching network, which utilizes the abundant resources of a large-scale computer network. In this paper, we introduce the concept of DFNET (DataFlow architecture on the interNET). DFNET is composed of configuration and control methodologies of routers in a packet switching network. The key of DFNET is that a packet switching network is utilized not for end-to-end communication but for dataflow computing. Because of desirable properties of a packet switching network, DFNET has high scalability in terms of the dataflow program size and high robustness against failures.