End-to-end arguments in system design
The work
| Authors | Jerome H. Saltzer; David P. Reed; David D. Clark |
|---|---|
| Editors | |
| Type | article |
| Year | 1984 |
| Citekey | saltzer1984endtoend |
Where it appeared
| Published in | ACM Transactions on Computer Systems |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 277--288 |
Identifiers
| DOI | 10.1145/357401.357402 |
|---|---|
| OpenAlex | W238861864 |
Access
| Landing page | https://doi.org/10.1145/357401.357402 |
|---|
Abstract
This paper presents a design principle that helps guide placement of functions among the modules of a distributed computer system. The principle, called the end-to-end argument, suggests that functions placed at low levels of a system may be redundant or of little value when compared with the cost of providing them at that low level. Examples discussed in the paper include bit-error recovery, security using encryption, duplicate message suppression, recovery from system crashes, and delivery acknowl-edgment. Low-level mechanisms to support these functions are justified only as performance enhance-ments.
A copy is held
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How it got here
| How it got here | agent via openalex |
|---|---|
| Added | 2026-08-05 00:00 UTC |
| Approved by | a person 2026-08-05 21:37 UTC |
Cite it as
@article{saltzer1984endtoend,
title = {End-to-end arguments in system design},
author = {Jerome H. Saltzer and David P. Reed and David D. Clark},
year = {1984},
journal = {ACM Transactions on Computer Systems},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
volume = {2},
number = {4},
pages = {277--288},
doi = {10.1145/357401.357402},
}
This record lives at https://refs.drheap.org/saltzer1984endtoend/ and will keep doing so.