andrew s tanenbaum distributed systems pdf

Along the same lines, plug computers and other so-called nano computers are finding their way to the market. Of course, they also have networking capabilities. Packed with sensors, lots of memory, and a powerful CPU, these devices are nothing less than full-fledged computers. Parallel to the development of increasingly powerful and networked machines, we have also been able to witness miniaturization of computer systems with perhaps the smartphone as the most impressive outcome. Wide-area networks or WANs allow hundreds of millions of machines all over the earth to be connected at speeds varying from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions bps, and sometimes even faster. Larger amounts of data can be moved between machines at rates of billions of bits per second (bps). Local-area networks or LANs allow thousands of machines within a building or campus to be connected in such a way that small amounts of information can be transferred in a few microseconds or so. The second development was the invention of high-speed computer networks. In any case, the current generation of machines have the computing power of the mainframes deployed 30 or 40 years ago, but for 1/1000th of the price or less. With multicore CPUs, we now are refacing the challenge of adapting and developing programs to exploit parallelism. Initially, these were 8-bit machines, but soon 16-, 32-, and 64-bit CPUs became common. The first was the development of powerful microprocessors. Starting in the mid-1980s, however, two advances in technology began to change that situation. Moreover, for lack of a way to connect them, these computers operated independently from one another. From 1945, when the modern computer era began, until about 1985, computers were large and expensive. The pace at which computer systems change was, is, and continues to be overwhelming.

Andrew s tanenbaum distributed systems pdf