What are distributed systems and how do they work?

For distributed systems to work, a task must be broken down into smaller subtasks and distributed across multiple nodes or computers on a network. These nodes or computers then communicate and cooperate to complete the task.

The following four steps provide a brief overview of how distributed systems work:

Decentralized components

A distributed system consists of many parts or nodes distributed over different real or virtual locations. These parties can communicate with each other over a network to achieve a single goal.

Communication

Components in a distributed system can communicate with each other using a variety of protocols and tools, including TCP/IP, HTTP, or message queues. These protocols allow nodes to communicate by sending and receiving messages or data.

Coordination

For the parts of a distributed system to work well together, they must coordinate their actions. Several mechanisms, such as distributed algorithms, consensus protocols or distributed transactions, can be used to achieve this coordination.

Fault tolerance

A distributed system should be built with fault tolerance in mind. This implies that it must be able to handle failures of specific parts or nodes without affecting the performance or availability of the entire system. Distributed systems use redundancy, replication, or partitioning strategies to achieve fault tolerance.

An online search engine is an example of a distributed system since it includes many nodes that perform various functions including crawling websites, indexing content, and handling user requests. These nodes work together to give users fast and efficient search results.

The blockchain, a decentralized ledger that records transactions securely and transparently, is also an example of a distributed system. It is distributed because the ledger is stored on multiple nodes in the network, with each node holding a copy of the entire ledger, allowing for greater transparency, security, and resilience against failures or attacks.