Abstract
Colleges and universities, along with many other organizations and the computer industry, are rushing to reap the benefits of the new distributed computing paradigm by implementing client/server applications. But there are many ways to move to a client/server environment, and institutions must plan their implementations to avioid technological anarchy -- a "Tower of Babel" in which the pieces do not communicate. This article describes ASURITE, the Arizona State University's Rational Information Technology Environment: its architecture and objectives, its standards approach, its services and characteristics, and how it has affected academic and administrative computing.