Distributed Systems
- Consists of multiple computers and software components that communicate through a computer network.
- Can consist of any number of possible configurations, such as mainframes, workstations, personal computers, and so on.
- The computers interact with each other and share the resources of the system to achieve a common goal
Advantages of Distributed Systems
- Reliability (fault tolerance)
- The important advantage of distributed computing system is reliability. If some of the machines within the system crash, the rest of the computers remain unaffected and work does not stop.
- Scalability
- In distributed computing the system can easily be expanded by adding more machines as needed.
- Sharing of Resources
- Shared data is essential to many applications such as banking, reservation system. As data or resources are shared in distributed system, other resources can be also shared (e.g. expensive printers).
- Flexibility
- As the system is very flexible, it is very easy to install, implement and debug new services.
- Speed
- A distributed computing system can have more computing power and it's speed makes it different than other systems.
- Open system
- As it is open system, every service is equally accessible to every client i.e. local or remote.
- Performance
- The collection of processors in the system can provide higher performance (and better price/performance ratio) than a centralized computer.
Disadvantages of Distributed Systems
- Troubleshooting
- Troubleshooting and diagnosing problems.
- Software
- Less software support is the main disadvantage of distributed computing system.
- Networking
- The network infrastructure can create several problems such as transmission problem, overloading, loss of messages.
- Security
- Easy access in distributed computing system increases the risk of security and sharing of data generates the problem of data security
