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Big Data For Dummies
book

Big Data For Dummies

by Judith Hurwitz, Alan Nugent, Dr. Fern Halper, Marcia Kaufman
April 2013
Beginner to intermediate
336 pages
8h 14m
English
For Dummies
Content preview from Big Data For Dummies

Chapter 3

Old Meets New: Distributed Computing

In This Chapter

arrow Taking a look at distributed computing through the years

arrow Exploring the elements of distributed computing

arrow Putting distributed computing together with hardware and software advancements

Distributed computing is not a new technology concept. It has been around for almost 50 years. Initially, the technology was used in computer science research as a way to scale computing tasks and attack complex problems without the expense of massive computing systems. One of the most successful early endeavors into distributed computing was a project funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). The result of the organization’s research was the development of the Internet, the first distributed computing network. You might say that it initiated a revolution that has led to a transformation of everything from commerce to healthcare, to transportation, and to human-to-human and machine-to-machine communications. In this chapter, we explain what distributed computing is and describe why it is the foundation for big data.

A Brief History of Distributed Computing

Behind all the most important trends over the past decade, ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781118644171Purchase book