CHARACTERIZATION OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
- 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.
- We look at several examples of modern distributed applications, including web search, multiplayer online games and financial trading systems, and also examine the key underlying trends driving distributed systems today: the pervasive nature of modern networking, the emergence of mobile and ubiquitous computing, the increasing importance of distributed multimedia systems, and the trend towards viewing distributed systems as a utility.
- Resource sharing as the main motivation for constructing distributed systems. Resources may be managed by servers and accessed by clients or they may be encapsulated as objects and accessed by other client objects.
- 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. Finally, the Web is discussed as an example of a large-scale distributed system and its main features are introduced.
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 the combination, share the essential characteristics that make them relevant subjects for study under the heading distributed systems. In this book, we aim to explain the characteristics of networked computers that impact system designers and implementors and to present the main concepts and techniques that have been developed to help in the tasks of designing and implementing systems that are based on them.
We define a distributed system as one in which hardware or software components located at networked computers communicate and coordinate their actions only by passing messages. This simple definition covers the entire range of systems in which networked computers can usefully be deployed. 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.
Our definition of distributed systems has the following significant consequences:
- 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. 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. The consequences of this characteristic of distributed systems will be a recurring theme throughout the book.
The prime motivation for constructing and using distributed systems stems from a desire to share resources. The term ‘resource’ is a rather abstract one, but it best characterizes the range of things that can usefully be shared in a networked computer system. It extends from hardware components such as disks and printers to software-defined entities such as files, databases and data objects of all kinds. It includes the stream of video frames that emerges from a digital video camera and the audio connection that a mobile phone call represents. The purpose of this chapter is to convey a clear view of the nature of distributed systems and the challenges that must be addressed in order to ensure that they are successful.
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