The Ninja architecture for robust Internet-scale systems and services

The Ninja project seeks to enable the broad innovation of robust, scalable, distributed Internet services, and to permit the emerging class of extreme ly heterogeneous devices to seamlessly access these services. Our architect ure consists of four basic elements. bases, which are powerful workstation cluster environments with a software platform that simplifies scalable serv ice construction; units, which are the devices by which users access the se rvices; active proxies, which are transformational elements that are used f or unit- or service-specific adaptation; and paths, which are an abstractio n through which units, services, and active proxies are composed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.