The LOCUS distributed operating system

Abstract

LOCUS is a distributed operating system which supports transparent access to data through a network wide filesystem, permits automatic replication of storage, supports transparent distributed process execution, supplies a number of high reliability functions such as nested transactions, and is upward compatible with Unix. Partitioned operation of subnet's and their dynamic merge is also supported. The system has been operational for about two years at UCLA and extensive experience in its use has been obtained. The complete system architecture is outlined in this paper, and that experience is summarized.