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Guide to Reliable Distributed Systems pp 45–67Cite as

The Way of the Cloud

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Abstract

This chapter begins a more systematic analysis of the major components of the cloud architecture. We consider client platform architectures and issues of mobility, the cloud and the Internet, where questions of control over routing dominate, and the multi-tiered structure of cloud computing datacenters. Within this broad context, many standards arise, and there have been many proposals for formalizing desired properties. This chapter considers situates the questions cloud computing poses and tries to answer against a broader perspective of large-scale computing applications, looking at the kinds of systems that demand cloud-scale solutions and summarizing their needs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Lamport’s comment about distributed system may have been somewhat pessimistic, but as we will see later in this book, he was in the midst of developing what we now think of as the theoretical foundations that side of the field. Today, Lamport’s theories of distributed computing are widely recognized as foundational steps towards solving problems of consistency, fault-tolerance and coordination. Few people have had more impact on any part of computer science.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Kenneth P. Birman

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  1. Kenneth P. Birman
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© 2012 Springer-Verlag London Limited

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Birman, K.P. (2012). The Way of the Cloud. In: Guide to Reliable Distributed Systems. Texts in Computer Science. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2416-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2416-0_2

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-2415-3

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