Distributed Systems

Distributed Systems represent a paradigm where multiple autonomous computing units, often geographically dispersed, cooperate and communicate to achieve a common goal, appearing to the end-user as a single, coherent system. This approach inherently manages concurrency, deals with independent…

Key facts

First appeared
1969
Category
technology
Problem solved
Distributed systems were created to overcome the inherent limitations of centralized, monolithic systems, such as single points of failure, scalability bottlenecks, and limited resource utilization. They enable applications to handle larger workloads, ensure high availability through redundancy, and leverage diverse, geographically dispersed computing resources efficiently, addressing the needs for resilience, performance, and global reach.
Platforms
Virtual Machines, Cloud Infrastructure (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), Container Orchestration Platforms, Mainframes (in distributed mainframe environments), Bare Metal Servers, Edge Devices, Mobile Devices (in peer-to-peer contexts)

Related technologies

Notable users

  • Uber
  • LinkedIn
  • Netflix
  • Microsoft
  • Any modern enterprise or internet company
  • Google
  • Meta (Facebook)
  • Amazon