Concurrent and Distributed Computing in Java

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Introduction

Parallel and distributed computing systems are now widely available. A parallel system consists of multiple processors that communicate with each other using shared memory. As the number of transistors on a chip increases, multiprocessor chips will become fairly common. With enough parallelism available in applications, such systems will easily beat sequential systems in performance. Figure 1.1 shows a parallel system with multiple processors. These processors communicate with each other using the shared memory. Each processor may also have local memory that is not shared with other processors.

We define distributed systems as those computer systems that contain multiple processors connected by a communication network. In these systems processors communicate with each other using messages that are sent over the network. Such systems are increasingly available because of decrease in prices of computer processors and the high-bandwidth links to connect them. Figure 1.2 shows a distributed system. The communication network in the figure could be a local area network such as an Ethernet, or a wide area network such as the Internet.

Programming parallel and distributed systems requires a different set of tools and techniques than that required by the traditional sequential software. The focus of this book is on these techniques.

Figure 1.1: A parallel ...