SKR 5302: Advanced Distributed Computing

1. Chapter 1: A Review : Distributed System

Advantages of Distributed Systems

Performance:
Very often a collection of processors can provide higher performance (and better price/performance ratio) than a centralized computer.
Distribution:
Many applications involve, by their nature, spatially separated machines (banking, commercial, automotive system).
Reliability (fault tolerance):
If some of the machines crash, the system can survive.
Incremental growth:
As requirements on processing power grow, new machines can be added incrementally.
Sharing of data/resources:
Shared data is essential to many applications banking, computer supported cooperative work, reservation systems); other resources can be also shared (e.g. expensive printers).
Communication:
Facilitates human-to-human communication.

Disadvantages of Distributed Systems

Difficulties of developing distributed software:
how should operating systems, programming languages and applications look like?
Networking problems:
several problems are created by the network infrastructure, which have to be dealt with: loss of messages, overloading, ...
Security problems:
sharing generates the problem of data security.