Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design (3rd Edition) [Hardcover]

G Coulouris (Author), Jean Dollimore (Author), Tim Kindberg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201619180 | ISBN-13: 978-0201619188 | Publication Date: August 21, 2000 | Edition: 3

This new edition represents a significant update of this best-selling textbook for distributed systems. It incorporates and anticipates the major developments in distributed systems technology. All chapters have been thoroughly revised and updated, including emphasis on the Internet, intranets, mobility and middleware. There is increased emphasis on algorithms and discussion of security has been brought forward in the text and integrated with other related technologies. As with previous editions, this book is intended to provide knowledge of the principles and practice of distributed system design. Information is conveyed in sufficient depth to allow readers to eveluate existing systems or design new ones. Case studies illustrate the design concepts for each major topic.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Distributed computing/Networks/Operating systems

Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design
Third Edition

George Coulouris, Jean Dollimore and Tim Kindberg

From reviews of the second edition:
"I do not know of a better book in the area of distributed systems and can recommend this one without hesitation."
Jan Madey, IEEE Parallel and Distributed Technology

"¿ the best introductory distributed systems textbook"
E. Douglas Jensen's Annotated List of Recommended Distributed Computing System Books

The third edition of this best-selling text incorporates the major recent developments in distributed systems technology. All chapters have been thoroughly revised and updated, with emphasis on the Internet, intranets, the Web and middleware. Other new topics include: fault modelling and fault tolerance, distributed objects and distributed multimedia systems. There is increased emphasis on algorithms and the discussion of security has been brought forward in the text and integrated with other related technologies. Unlike the previous editions, prior knowledge of UNIX is not required to follow the text.

As with previous editions, this book is intended to provide knowledge of the principles and practice of distributed system design. Information is conveyed in sufficient depth to allow readers to evaluate existing systems or design new ones. Case studies illustrate the design concepts for each major topic.

New to the third edition:
· New chapters on quality of service for multimedia systems, algorithms for coordination and agreement and CORBA
· Expanded coverage of the Internet and applications including the Web.
· Material on mobile computing and new network technologies such as IPv6, Mobile IP and wireless networks.
· More emphasis on object orientation, with Java and CORBA as the basis for most examples.
· New material on Internet security, fault modelling, fault tolerance and models of system execution.

A comprehensive website with additional material for readers and instructors can be found at www.cdk3.net or www.booksites.net/cdkbook.

Until recently, the authors were jointly responsible for several undergraduate and postgraduate courses on distributed systems at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London.

George Coulouris is now an emeritus professor at Queen Mary and Westfield College and is a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Laboratory for Communications Engineering, Cambridge University, where he leads a research project on quality of service for dynamically reconfigurable multimedia systems. He has recently undertaken research on computer-supported cooperative work and its applications, middleware for distributed multimedia and security models for groupware.

Jean Dollimore is now a Senior Research Fellow at Queen Mary and Westfield College. She has recently carried out research on system support for computer-supported cooperative work, middleware for distributed multimedia and security models for groupware.

Tim Kindberg is a researcher at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, where he is investigating a web-based infrastructure for mobile computing that enables the physical world to be augmented with web resources. He has previously led a research project on system support for computer-supported cooperative work, and has undertaken research on distributed operating systems and middleware for distributed multimedia systems.

About the Author

George Coulouris is a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Jean Dollimore was, until her retirement, Senior Lecturer in computer science at Queen Mary College, University of London. Tim Kindberg is a Senior Researcher at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Bristol. Gordon Blair is a Professor in the Lancaster University Computing Department. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 800 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley; 3 edition (August 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201619180
• ISBN-13: 978-0201619188
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,361,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of content - but very wordy and reader unfriendly, December 8, 2005

By 

Comp Sc. Instructor "CSI" (TX, US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design (4th Edition) (Hardcover)

I had adopted this book to teach Distributed Systems to a senior level undergrad class. I think I may have made a mistake, not knowing before hand how hard it would be for me to read this book (despite having some background in distributed systems). The students constantly complained of it being too "Wordy" and "vague". Few generic figures and mostly all text that seemed to be a rehash of several IEEE/ACM papers without giving sufficient examples or explanation. Some times, the authors did indeed explain some concepts with examples. At other times, they just left the concepts in vague mathematical notation or arcane definitions expecting the readers to make sense of it. While the english is grammatically correct, it is written in such a stuffy academic style that I found myself having to read most paragraphs twice or thrice before I could figure out what the author was trying to say. At times, I was thinking the authors should have been lawyers instead. (If the authors are reading this .. please consider the maxim: A picture is indeed worth a thousand words). A side note: I am not averse to reading academic papers. I do that all day long. But I just don't think a textbook should be written in that style.

On the pro side: This book has lots of content related to distributed systems - and that was one of the reasons I adopted it. However, what's the point if that content is unreadable? My recommendation would be other books such as Tanenbaums Distributed Systems book (it has lesser content, but more readable and suited for undergraduate level).

I give it high marks for the good content, but very low marks for the style of narration and presentation.

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Merely an introduction to Networking concepts, June 19, 2004

By 

Rohit Vishwakarma (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design (3rd Edition) (Hardcover)

This book mostly explains networking concepts from a point of view of MIS people. I did not find this very useful from a programming concepts point of view, For example book does not explains the fundamental of distributed transactions, concurrency and replication of distributed data. To me it feels like networking concepts and database concepts were merged in one single book. Book in general attempts to covers a wide variety of topics. It is not very useful if you are a serious programmer in Corba or transaction management.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good book for distributed systems., November 10, 2004

By 

Chongjie Zhang "Jacob" (Baton Rouge, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design (3rd Edition) (Hardcover)

As the awareness of resource sharing and cooperation has increased, distributed systems have gained unprecedented attention. However, designing a practical distributed application is a demanding and complicated task. Coulouris et al. have excellently addressed this design issue with Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design. This book covers various topics from fundamental concepts and principles of distributed systems to some advanced topics, such as replication and distributed multimedia systems. For each topic, the authors provide information in sufficient depth and breadth for readers to conduct further research.

The strength of the book lies in efficiently using practical examples to explain the underlying principles of distributed systems. Helpful case studies are placed throughout the book. Another characteristic of the book is its successful and extensive use of comparison and contrast to make concepts clear.

The book has eighteen chapters and each chapter is well-organized, starting with an introduction and ending with a summary. Although the authors indicate that the book is organized into five main topic areas, the actual organization is not so intuitive and consistent with those topic areas. For example, Chapter 5, 7, and 9 discuss middleware of distributed systems, but Chapter 6 and 8 talk about system infrastructure. So I think it may be better to pick and choose each topic area, instead of following the actual organization of the book.

The first four chapters of the book offer the prerequisite knowledge and fundamental concepts of distributed systems. The authors introduce the characterization of distributed systems (Chapter 1), system models of distributed systems (Chapter 2), networks that distributed systems run on (Chapter 3), and communication protocols between processes in distributed systems (Chapter 4). These chapters are basic for understanding the following chapters.

The second topic area is the middleware of distributed systems. This part covers interaction between distributed objects (Chapter 5), security in distributed systems (Chapter 7), and name services (Chapter 9). Chapter 17 offers a detailed CORBA case study to help reader better understand previous chapters about distributed middleware.

The third topic area is distributed operating systems. Although the author talks about various subareas of distributed operating systems, such as distributed file systems (Chapter 8), distributed multimedia systems (Chapter 15), and distributed shared memory (Chapter 16), the book could have included a very important part of distributed operating systems - distributed scheduling.

It is a good choice to gather distributed algorithms as an independent part, although these algorithms are used by other topic areas. Chapter 10 describes the algorithms related to time and global states, and Chapter 11 describes those related to coordination and agreement.

The final part of the book covers data sharing. In this part, Coulouris et al. first introduce the basic concepts of transaction (Chapter 12), then extends them to distributed transactions (Chapter 13). With distributed transactions, the authors discuss data replication.

Coulouris et al.'s coverage of distributed systems provides sufficient knowledge to evaluate distributed systems or design new ones. Although there is minor problem with the organization of the book, I strongly recommend it as a textbook for an advanced undergraduate course, an introductory postgraduate course, or merely as a self-study reference.