A major reason for the rarity of distributed applications, despite the proliferation of networks, is the sensitivity of their performance to various aspects of the network environment. We demonstrate that distributed applications can run faster than local ones, using common hardware. We also show that the primary factors affecting performance are, in approximate order of importance: speed of the user's workstation, speed of the remote host (if any), and the high-level (above the transport level) protocols used. In particular, the use of batching, pipelining, and structure in high-level protocols reduces the degradation often experienced between different bandwidth networks. Less significant, but still noticeable improvements result from proper design and implementation of the underlying transport protocols. Ultimately, with proper application of these techniques, network bandwidth is rendered virtually insignificant.

One of the most important functions of an intelligent workstation is to provide a state-of-the-art user interface to distributed resources.One aspect of such an interface is virtual terminal support for both local and remote applications with a range of requirements, including graphics.To ensure good response for remote applications, in particular, the bulk of user interaction must be handled local to the workstation.Therefore, the terminal management software on the workstation must provide object modeling as well as viewing facilities, in contrast to most contemporary graphics systems.One way of doing this is to support structured display files.It is equally important to support simultaneous access to multiple applications; thus the terminal management software must provide window system Lscilities.Lastly, since the terminal management software should present a common interface to both local and remote applications, the workstation itself should be regarded as a multifunction component of the distributed system and not strictly as a terminal or a personal computer.This paper presents the system architecture and protocols necessary to achieve these goals and evaluates an existing implementation.