Why Build a Distributed System?

Have you ever wondered why some systems are spread out over many computers instead of just one? Well, it’s because distributed systems offer some big advantages.

• Distributed systems are computing systems composed of multiple autonomous computers or devices that communicate and coordinate with each other to achieve a common goal.
• In this article, we’ll explore why people choose to build these kinds of systems and how they help us do things faster, safer, and more efficiently in our digital world.

Benefits of Building a Distributed System

• Improved Reliability: Distributed systems block out the chance of a single point of failure, you achieve a high availability and fault-tolerant system by distributing tasks among different nodes.
• Scalability: Distributed systems could easily scale up as they require adding more nodes to take care of a growing workload and can continue to perform even when the number of users is growing.
• Resource Utilization: Distributed systems help to improve resource allocation dynamically by using computing resources only when needed, and this makes resource utilization better and has a lower operating cost.
• Flexibility: The framework of distributed systems is made up of flexible and modular structures, therefore the development cycles and maintenance become easier and more flexible than ever before to cope with external business requirements.
• Improved Performance: Through the use of multiple nodes that distribute work, distributed systems accomplish what would otherwise be multiple parallel processing to provide greater performance and speedier task execution.
• Data Consistency: The distributed systems are meant to maintain synchronization in the distributed environments through precise design work and execution of synchronizing and replicating mechanisms for the data.
• Support for Cloud Computing: The cloud computing platforms are distributed systems and hence they are resources, storage, and services accessible through the Internet on-demand allowing enterprises to create or shrink their infrastructure through the internet at any given time.

Use Cases and Scenarios of Distributed Systems

Distributed systems are very flexible and they are used across a wide range of use cases and scenarios. This is the reason why they are so powerful and have changed the way organizations used to manage their computing tasks and data processing.

• With frameworks that include Apache Hadoop and Spark, distributed computing principles can process data in parallel and in real-time. Therefore, large datasets can be analyzed.
• In Content Delivery Networks(CDNs), It is the distributed systems that deliver web content to users worldwide rapidly and successfully.
• Through the act of caching content on servers that are geographically nearer to the end-users, CDNs accomplish the reduction of latency and the improvement of the content delivery speed resulting in a better browsing experience for users.
• Distributing systems in CDN dynamically direct traffic to the nearest server, which implies high availability and reliability of the system, during the periods of high demand and network congestion.

Business and Technical Drivers in Distributed Systems

1. Business Drivers

In distributed systems, business drivers encompass factors such as market demand for scalable and reliable services, customer expectations for fast and efficient performance, competition pushing for innovative solutions, regulatory requirements for data privacy and security, and financial considerations regarding cost-effectiveness and return on investment.

Business drivers influence decisions related to the adoption, implementation, and optimization of distributed systems to meet business objectives and maintain a competitive edge.

2. Technical Drivers

On the technical side, drivers for distributed systems include the need for fault tolerance to ensure system reliability, scalability to handle increasing workloads and user demands, efficient resource utilization to optimize performance and minimize costs, data consistency and integrity to maintain reliable data across distributed environments, and adaptability to accommodate evolving technology trends and business requirements.

Technical drivers guide decisions regarding the design, architecture, and operation of distributed systems to meet technical challenges and achieve desired performance and reliability levels.

Both sets of drivers are crucial for guiding decision-making and ensuring the successful deployment and operation of distributed systems in modern business environments.

Challenges and Considerations in Distributed Systems

Distributed systems, which are great in bringing so many opportunities, also yield their own challenges and aspects that have to be taken into account by the organizations not to disrupt their distributed platform security and success.

• Concurrency Control: Coordinating simultaneous operations across multiple nodes without data conflicts is complex.
• Consistency: Ensuring data consistency across distributed nodes, especially in the face of network failures, is difficult.
• Fault Tolerance: Systems must be resilient to node failures and network disruptions, requiring robust fault tolerance mechanisms.
• Network Communication: Communication delays and failures between nodes impact performance and reliability.
• Scalability: Designing systems to handle growing workloads while maintaining performance is a significant challenge.
• Security: Protecting distributed systems from unauthorized access and attacks requires robust security measures.
• Coordination and Consensus: Achieving agreement among distributed nodes, especially in the presence of faults, is challenging.
• Monitoring and Management: Managing the complexity of distributed systems and ensuring their health and performance is demanding.

Conclusion

Last and least, building of computers and networks with these systems yields many benefits such as good defect tolerance, multilayer distribution and scalability which the current tech world requires.

• However, it’s important not to underestimate the challenges that come with distributed systems, including complexity, confidentiality, and data consistency.
• Designing the distributed architecture effectively is crucial for enhancing enterprise efficiency and addressing future challenges.