Communications in enterprise networks

All components are typically distributed over networks. Some of the distribution are physical, some virtual. The Internet are designed for packet loss. In the local networks packets lost with fewer probability. Typically the API is message-passing. There are sync and async message passing. Problems: servers may have software errors, latency is not zero, bandwidth is not infinite, network is not secure, topology is changing, not only one administrator, transport cost is not zero, the network is heterogeneous.