Distributed systems: definition and goals (Tanenbaum)

Distributed Systems

M. V. Steen and A. S. Tanenbaum

INTRODUCTION

1.1 DEFINITION OF A DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM

1.2 GOALS

1.3 TYPES OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

"A distributed system is a collection of independent computers that appears to its users as a single coherent system."

Important aspects

The first one is that a distributed system consists of components (i.e., computers) that are autonomous

Second aspect is that users (be they people or programs) think they are dealing with a single system

In principle, distributed systems should also be relatively easy to expand or

scale.