An interesting paper on decentralised systems and REST

[Noah Slater <ns...@apache.org>]

Hey,

Some interesting stuff in this, perhaps:

  http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rohit/ARRESTED-ICSE.pdf

  Extending the REpresentational State Transfer (REST)
  Architectural Style for Decentralized Systems

Specifically with regard to distributed clusters of CouchDB instances.

Abstract:

      Because it takes time and trust to establish agreement, traditional
  consensus-based architectural styles cannot safely accommodate resources that
  change faster than it takes to transmit notification of that change, nor
  resources that must be shared across independent agencies.

      The alternative is decentralization: permitting independent agencies to make
  their own decisions. Our definition contrasts with that of distribution, in
  which several agents share control of a single decision. Ultimately, the
  physical limits of network latency and the social limits of independent agency
  call for solutions that can accommodate multiple values for the same variable.

      Our approach to this challenge is architectural: proposing constraints on
  the configuration of components and connectors to induce particular desired
  properties of the whole application. Specifically, we present, implement, and
  evaluate variations of the World Wide Web’s R E presentational State Transfer
  (REST) architectural style that support distributed and decentralized systems.

Best,

-- 
Noah Slater, http://people.apache.org/~nslater/