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This is why distributed systems are useful (and I am building one) | Abyss of Software Engineering

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In this post I’d like to discuss the concept of distributed systems (DS) starting with the question of what makes a bunch of computers a system. What can be achieved by designing such systems, and what are the unintended benefits? When is it required to build one? I will touch briefly on some of the challenges, but my main focus is on the motives for creating DS and why I think it is worth the investment. While working with web-scale systems and critical high-availability service, I had to explain some of the aspects of these systems to new engineers joining a project. Now the time has come for me to design my own distributed/grid computing system for my machine learning project. I think it is worth an attempt to explain DS and the motivations for it in a more or less coherent post. Here it is…

In this post I’d like to discuss the concept of distributed systems (DS) starting with the question of what makes a bunch of computers a system. What can be achieved by designing such systems, and what are the unintended benefits? When is it required to build one? I will touch briefly on some of the challenges, but my main focus is on the motives for creating DS and why I think it is worth the investment. While working with web-scale systems and critical high-availability service, I had to explain some of the aspects of these systems to new engineers joining a project. Now the time has come fo

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