A distributed network provides a firm with several benefits It can be very responsive to the diverse needs of users. It also enables the facilities of the network to be used efficiently, since proceSsing jobs can be routed to those unoccupied computer systems in the network that are most suitable. If a particular computer system fails, the remaining computer systems can generally handle its processing load with slight loss in service. Finally, the network is flexible and adaptable to change, since new computer systems can easily be added and present systems deleted.