A distributed system is one in which components located at networked computers communicate and coordinate their actions only by passing messages. This definition leads to the following especially significant characteristics of distributed systems: concurrency of components, lack of a global clock and independent failures of components
The challenges arising from the construction of distributed systems are the heterogeneity of their components, openness (which allows components to be added or replaced), security, scalability – the ability to work well when the load or the number of users increases – failure handling, concurrency of components, transparency and providing quality of service
Networks of computers are everywhere. The Internet is one, as are the many networks of which it is composed. Mobile phone networks, corporate networks, factory networks, campus networks, home networks, in-car networks – all of these, both separately and in combination, share the essential characteristics that make them relevant subjects for study under the heading distributed systems
Computers that are connected by a network may be spatially separated by any distance. They may be on separate continents, in the same building or in the same room.
Concurrency
In a network of computers, concurrent program execution is the norm. I can do my work on my computer while you do your work on yours, sharing resources such as web pages or files when necessary. The capacity of the system to handle shared resources can be increased by adding more resources (for example. computers) to the network. We will describe ways in which this extra capacity can be usefully deployed at many points in this book. The coordination of concurrently executing programs that share resources is also an important and recurring topic.
No global clock:
When programs need to cooperate they coordinate their actions by exchanging messages. Close coordination often depends on a shared idea of the time at which the programs’ actions occur. But it turns out that there are limits to the accuracy with which the computers in a network can synchronize their clocks – there is no single global notion of the correct time. This is a direct consequence of the fact that the only communication is by sending messages through a network
Independent failures:
All computer systems can fail, and it is the responsibility of system designers to plan for the consequences of possible failures. Distributed systems can fail in new ways. Faults in the network result in the isolation of the computers that are connected to it, but that doesn’t mean that they stop running.
In fact, the programs on them may not be able to detect whether the network has failed or has become unusually slow. Similarly, the failure of a computer, or the unexpected termination of a program somewhere in the system (a crash), is not immediately made known to the other components with which it communicates. Each component of the system can fail independently, leaving the others still running.