What does the word ‘deterministic’ mean in regards to communication through a network?

Question

I’ve been delving into the world of networking and have read about “deterministic data communications”. I Googled the word “deterministic” and it says “relating to the philosophical doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will.”

Can someone how that relates to data communications?

Thanks 🙂

In: 7

Answer 1

In the word of computing, “deterministic” means “not random”.

If you run a deterministic process twice with the same input you will always get the same output.

A single computer is almost completely deterministic.

That is not necessarily true when you have two computers communicating with each other, though: Packets can be dropped or distorted, sync can be lost, and so on. A large part of designing network protocols is aimed at getting around that, to make network communication as deterministic as possible.