Decentralized Control.
Abstract
A conceptual model of decentralized control for computer systems is presented. The model is founded on the principle that an activity at any particular level of abstraction is decentralized if there is no unique lowerlevel entity which enforces a consistent view of the activity state on the entities involved in that activity. Three factors are presented to determine how decentralized the control of an individual resource is: the number of controllers of a resource, the extent that each controller is involved in every control activity, and the parity of the controllers' authority. Two factors are presented to determine the decentralization of system-wide control: the number of controllers involved in each instance of multilateral management and the number of resources involved in each instance of multilateral management. Physical communication issues are discussed which effect the logical decentralization of control. Communication is considered to consist of the production and manifestation of signals. The observability of signals is the practical difference between the signal production and manifestation. Three factors of signal observability are presented: completeness, coherence, and latency. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1980
- Accession Number
- ADA085956
Entities
People
- E. D. Jensen
Organizations
- Honeywell International, Inc.