The ship model-a new computational model for distributed systems

The authors present a new model of distributed computation called the ship model which helps solve the problem of location in a distributed system. In this model all entities are represented by ships. A ship contains both code and data and zero or more threads of control and represents a location into which other ships may move. Ships communicate by moving ships between each other. By representing location with ships, the ship mobility primitive unifies both code migration and inter-entity communication. Distributed programs can use mobility to capitalize on locality of reference and trade computation for communication. Not only can low speed lines be more effectively utilized, but network traffic in high-speed networks can be greatly reduced and interface to network services can be made simpler. A comparison with related work is also given along with a description of a prototype implementation