Copyright  1994 Architecture Projects Management Limited The copyright is held on behalf of the sponsors for the time being of the ANSA Workprogramme. Poseidon House Castle Park Cambridge CB3 0RD United Kingdom TELEPHONE: Cambridge (01223) 515010 INTERNATIONAL: +44 1223 515010 FAX: +44 1223 359779 E-MAIL: apm@ansa.co.uk ANSA Phase III Distribution: Supersedes: Superseded by: APM.1019.01 Approved 25th October 1994 Technical Report Visualisation of Distributed Systems Yigal Hoffner Abstract This paper presents a model of the visualization process and discusses the problems associated with the process of visualization of distributed systems. The problems can be divided into those concerned with incomplete information, and those concerned with unexpected information arriving from the monitored system. Solutions to these problems are introduced and are used to obtain guidelines for the designer of distributed systems and for the designer of a visualization tool.