Customer Reviews

Distributed Computing: Fundamentals, Simulations, and Advanced Topics (Wiley Series on Parallel and Distributed Computing)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've struggled to read this text, since it contains many very recent results distilled into intelligently organized chapters. Unfortunately, even though this book is intended for a savvy audience, the text is often too detailed and technical, while important "big picture" intuition is never relayed. Frequent errors in the algorithms and proofs, ranging from simple subscript swaps to more subtle errors in logic to the (rarer) complete lack of logic make this a difficult book to recommend. In addition, the exercises are frequently too vague (sometimes meaningless) -- this book is definitely not recommended for class work.

This is a good book in the field of distributed computing, but it is very mathematically oriented. It concentrates on impossibility proofs and lower bound proofs. I advise people new to this material to read a more descriptive book before reading this one

In my opinion, this book is difficult to read with very few exhibits. The author's comprehension is profound with tons of references. This book should be used between intermediate to an advanced course of Distributed Computing area.

I used this book for teaching an under-graduate primer course in distributed computing. The book is readable, coherent, well-structured and very efficient as a textbook. It strikes a good balance between the sea of details and the basic principles. I am familiar with the core of this book since it was a collection of lecture notes (alas, no longer available). It's a pity that some important topics have been omitted from the book version (e.g., Gallager, Humblett, Spira alg). There are some minor errors and imperfections in pseudocodes and exercise definitions which are a little bit annoying. That's why I'm giving this book four points and not five. Bottom line: I would recommend this book as a course textbook.

[A review of the 2nd edition.]
The authors give a mathematically sophisticated analysis of various modes of distributed computing. Where the distribution might refer to separate CPUs in a multiprocessor architecture, or perhaps to separate computers inside a LAN, or to computers scattered across the Internet.

We see that issues of latency and reliability can [and will] arise. Coordinating a task across the processors gives rise to amazing complexity. What if some processors crash? A consensus problem occurs. How to solve it is explained.

There are also impossibilities in task solving that might occur, and these need to be treated carefully. The narrative has suggestions on how to diagnose if such events happen. The reader will see that fault tolerance can be awkward to handle.

The treatment may be too mathematical for some readers. You need a strong background in maths; preferably including discrete maths.