📝 Intro to Distributed Systems

Welcome to The Code Hut Distributed Systems series! In this first post, we’ll introduce the fundamental concepts and give you an overview of what you’ll learn in this series.

What is a Distributed System?

A distributed system is a collection of independent computers that appear to the user as a single coherent system. They communicate and coordinate to perform tasks, share data, and ensure reliability.

Examples of distributed systems you use every day:

• Google Search Engine (spreads queries across thousands of servers)
• Apache Kafka (distributed messaging system)
• Cassandra / DynamoDB (distributed databases)
• Kubernetes (orchestrates containers across nodes)

Why Distributed Systems?

Distributed systems exist to solve problems that a single machine cannot handle efficiently:

• Scalability: Handle millions of users or requests.
• Fault Tolerance: If one node fails, the system keeps running.
• High Availability: System remains accessible 24/7.
• Performance: Parallel processing of tasks across multiple machines.

Core Challenges

While distributed systems bring many benefits, they also introduce complexity:

• Network failures and latency
• Data consistency (CAP Theorem)
• Concurrency control across nodes
• Coordination and consensus
• Monitoring and observability

What You’ll Learn Next

Here’s a sneak peek of the next few posts in the series:

• 🔒 Concurrency & Locking in Distributed Systems
• 🤝 Consensus & Coordination
• 💰 Transactions & Sagas

For the full list of topics, visit the Distributed Systems Series Index.

Stay tuned — in the next post, we’ll explore Concurrency & Locking and how Java handles optimistic and pessimistic approaches!

Label for this post: Distributed Systems