Desirable properties of a network taxonomy

Abstract

This paper reviews and analyzes the desirable properties of a computer network taxonomy from the point of view of its usefulness in a design procedure. A key factor that must be considered is that the design environment currently evolving uses functionally high level VLSI-based building blocks to construct various network architectures. This paper begins by reviewing the uses of a taxonomy in a network context, and continues with a review of specifications for network requirements. A set of hardware interconnection primitives is defined next. A review of the Anderson and Jensen taxonomy (Ander75) is then presented, with a discussion of its completeness. The main thrust of this article is given in a section of attributes of a design oriented taxonomy. Finally, extensions are proposed for fault tolerant considerations and protocols. A computer network is defined to be a hetrogeneous collection of computers and the telecommunications subsystem linking them together. Here the properties of the various network architectures are of particular interest; the 'user' computers (or processors) are considered as sources and sinks of messages being transmitted over the network. No distinction as to the geographical scope of the network is made because it does not impact the taxonomy considerations addressed here. (Author)