Distributed Systems

What does Distributed Systems mean?

In this context, the objective of keeping copies of data in several locations.

Main Idea:

As organizations, consumer bases, and business partnerships spread out, distributed systems have become a general term applied to a wide variety of processes. In computer science alone, the theory and development of technology to support distributed systems for software applications and computing is a sub-field of its own.

It is not possible to do justice to the entire scope of distributed systems in a single article. We will highlight a few features, with the admission that these remarks only scratch the surface.

The Advantages of Distributed Systems

• Keeps copies of data in several places which first and foremost creates redundancy. If one data center is destroyed, all is not lost.
• Keeps copies of data in several places to manage traffic and reduce latency, by making data available locally.
• Keeps copies of data while using corporations that explicitly provide distributed storage and application solutions, e.g. cloud providers like Amazon Web Services.

The Complexity of Distributed Systems

There are many challenges that come with maintaining distributed systems. Of course, only you know what is most important to you. Do costs matter a lot and the only value is to have an emergency back up? Do you care that your organization’s data is available around the clock to the world?

When deciding about traditional distributed computing systems, considerations include but are not limited to: who is responsible for synchronizing databases, how and when; who responds when systems have network problems such as down time or partitions, how and at what cost; and what mechanisms and safeguards exist to keep data up to date and protected through time.

When security is the uppermost priority, you might imagine departments of defense keeping all of these systems in-house. A growing problem in cybersecurity, however, is when distributed systems are maintained and controlled by easily identifiable centralized entities (like cloud providers). Centralized providers of distributed services present high profile targets that can and have been attacked successfully.

Used in a Sentence:

Geeq’s technology secures the integrity of data, with all the advantages of well-maintained distributed systems, by inventing a completely new, decentralized, and automated blockchain technology.

Last Updated: February 25, 2023