Distributed Systems

Multicomputers (do not share memory and clock); loosely-coupled.

• Networked computers
• Require networking infrastructure
• Local area networks (LAN) or Wide area networks (WAN)
• May be either client-server or peer-to-peer systems
  • Client and server roles may vary e.g. X terminal is a windows server; runs on machine you think of as client
  • Client-Server Systems are a common form of distributed system in which the client system and server system are not similar.
  • An example of a client-server system is the file server on campus. Here, a central server provides file access to authenticated users at client machines.
  • Peer-to-Peer Systems are another form of distributed system in which the participating computer systems are similar.
• Students wishing to experiment with programming at this parallel level can investigate the PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) and MPI (Message Passing Interface) libraries that are widely available.