Week2 - Introduction to Distributed Systems & Cloud Computing

These flashcards cover essential vocabulary related to Distributed Systems and Cloud Computing, aiding in reviewing key concepts and definitions for the exam.

Distributed System

A collection of independent computers that appears to its users as a single coherent system.

Fault-tolerance

The ability of a system to continue to provide service despite the failure of some of its components.

Scalability

The capacity of a system to grow in order to meet demand, allowing for the addition or removal of computing units.

Virtual Machine (VM)

A software emulation of physical computers that allow running multiple operating systems on a single hardware platform.

Hardware Virtualization

A method that creates one or more virtual machines to share the hardware resources of a single physical computer.

Hypervisor

A layer that allows multiple virtual machines to interact with the underlying physical hardware.

Cloud Computing

Delivering shared, metered services over the Internet that utilizes hardware virtualization and service-oriented architecture.

Public Cloud

Cloud services offered over the Internet and shared across various customers.

Private Cloud

Cloud infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, can be managed internally or by a third party.

Hybrid Cloud

A combination of public and private clouds, allowing data and applications to be shared between them.

Service Models

Levels of cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

Distributed System

A collection of independent computers that appears to its users as a single coherent system.

Fault-tolerance

The ability of a system to continue to provide service despite the failure of some of its components.

Scalability

The capacity of a system to grow in order to meet demand, allowing for the addition or removal of computing units.

Virtual Machine (VM)

A software emulation of physical computers that allow running multiple operating systems on a single hardware platform.

Hardware Virtualization

A method that creates one or more virtual machines to share the hardware resources of a single physical computer.

Hypervisor

A layer that allows multiple virtual machines to interact with the underlying physical hardware.

Cloud Computing

Delivering shared, metered services over the Internet that utilizes hardware virtualization and service-oriented architecture.

Public Cloud

Cloud services offered over the Internet and shared across various customers.

Private Cloud

Cloud infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, can be managed internally or by a third party.

Hybrid Cloud

A combination of public and private clouds, allowing data and applications to be shared between them.

Service Models

Levels of cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

Advantages of Distributed Systems

Enable high reliability by distributing tasks, improve performance through parallel processing, and offer enhanced scalability by accommodating more users or data.

Challenges of Distributed Systems

Include ensuring data consistency, managing concurrency, handling partial failures, dealing with network latency, and securing communication.

Client-Server Model

A distributed system architecture where clients request resources or services from a central server.

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Model

A decentralized distributed system architecture where each node (peer) can act as both a client and a server, sharing resources directly with other peers.

Middleware

Software that acts as an intermediary layer between applications and operating systems, facilitating communication and data management in distributed applications.

Consensus in Distributed Systems

A fundamental problem in distributed computing where multiple processes agree on a single data value or state.

Message Passing

A method of inter-process communication where processes communicate by sending and receiving messages.

Type-1 Hypervisor (Bare-metal)

Runs directly on the host hardware to control the hardware and to manage guest operating systems, commonly used in server virtualization.

Type-2 Hypervisor (Hosted)

Runs on a conventional operating system (like Windows or Linux) as an application, enabling it to host virtual machines.

Containerization

An operating system-level virtualization method that packages an application and its dependencies into a single isolated unit (container), sharing the host OS kernel.

Docker

An open-source platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of applications using containerization.

Kubernetes

An open-source container orchestration system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

Elasticity (Cloud Computing)

The ability of a cloud system to rapidly provision and de-provision computing resources in response to changing workload demands, either automatically or manually.

On-demand Self-service

A characteristic of cloud computing that allows consumers to unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider.

Resource Pooling

A provider's computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand.

Measured Service

Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts).

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Provides virtualized computing resources over the Internet, including virtual machines, storage, networks, and operating systems. Users manage the OS and applications.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining infrastructure. Users manage applications and data.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Delivers software applications over the Internet, on a subscription basis. Users typically interact with the software via a web browser.