@Comment[	$Source: /mit/zephyr/doc/techplan/RCS/titlepage.txt,v $]
@Comment[	$Author: jtkohl $]
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@Comment[This file is included by titlepage.mss.  It containts the text]
@Comment[of the abstract.]

	Zephyr is a notice transport and delivery system under
development at MIT Project Athena.  Zephyr was developed for use
with 4.3BSD @C(Unix)@Foot{@C(Unix) is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.}
but should be portable to other operating systems.  Zephyr
was developed for use by network based services and applications with
a need for immediate, reliable and rapid UID based communication with
their clients.  Zephyr meets the high throughput, high fan-out
communications requirements of large-scale workstation environments.
None of the communications packages currently availble for use in a
workstation environment adequately meet these requirements.
Electronic mail provides guaranteed delivery but is too slow and
cumbersome.  Broadcast messages are fast but too transient and don't
scale well.

	Zephyr is designed as a suite of services
based on a reliable, authenticated, UID to UID notice protocol.
Multiple, redundant Zephyr servers provide basic location, routing,
queueing and dispatching services to Zephyr clients that
communicate via the Zephyr Client Library.  Other services can be
built upon this base.

	@P{Note:} Comments on this document may either be sent via
electronic mail to zephyr-comments@@athena.MIT.EDU or entered into the local
Athena ``zephyr-comments'' @I{discuss} meeting.  @P{Areas delineated
by change bars are under development and subject to change without
notice!}