Trends in Distributed Systems

The Internet

Enough said, right?

Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing

Increasingly, companies use techniques such as location-aware or context-aware computing to provide users with highly targeted content. This level of mobility also introduces new challenges for distributed systems, such as: - variable connectivity - outright disconnection - maintain operation in the face of mobility

{:.def term=“Ubiquitous Computing”} The harnessing of many small, cheap computational devices that are present in users’ physical environments, including home, office, and natural settings.

The suggestion with ubiquitous computing is that, eventually, computing devices will be so pervasive that they’re scarcely noticed. Their computational behavior will be transparently and intimately tied with their physical function. Although there is some overlap, ubiquitous and mobile computing are separate.

A primary goal of ubiquitous computing is spontaneous interoperation, whereby associations between devices are routinely created and destroyed. The challenge is to make this interoperation fast and convenient, even though the user may be visiting the area for the first time. The process of enabling a visitor’s device to communicate on the host network and associate with local services is called service discovery.

Distributed Multimedia Systems

The crucial characteristic of continuous media types is that they include a temporal dimension. For example, there may be restrictions on minimum acceptable FPS throughput or real-time latency.

Distributed multimedia systems are largely concerned with: - providing support for an extensible range of formats - providing a range of mechanisms to ensure a desired quality - providing resource management strategies - providing adaptation strategies to deal with loss of quality/service

Distributed Computing as a Utility

Many companies have an interest in promoting distributed resources as a commodity or utility in the style of water or electricity. This opens the door for a rent-based service model rather than an ownership-based model. - SaaS, IaaS, *aaS

{:.def term=“Cloud”} A set of internet-based application, storage, and computing services sufficient to support most users’ needs, thus enabling them to largely or totally dispense with local data storage and application software.

Clouds are generally implemented on cluster computers, sets of interconnected computers that cooperate closely to provide a single, integrated high-performance computing capability.