TOS: A Kernel of a Distributed Systems Management System

Abstract

Distributed systems are becoming harder to manage, in part because the uses we put to distributed systems are rapidly changing. Hence, the software used to manage a distributed system needs to be flexible enough to accommodate these new uses. It also has to be secure enough to not allow unauthorized changes to be made to the system. We present a library and a kernel that supports the management of distributed systems. This kernel, called the TACOMA Operating System (TOS), is an outgrowth of our research into mobile agent systems and applications. We have used TOS to implement several novel distributed management policies, one of which is discussed in detail in this paper. We conclude the paper with a discussion on the applicability of mobile agents to self-managing distributed applications.