Distributed Systems 4th edition (2023)

You can get a digital (personalized) copy of this book for free.

This page refers to the 4th edition of Distributed Systems

This is the fourth edition of “Distributed Systems.” We have stayed close to the setup of the third edition, including examples of (part of) existing distributed systems close to where general principles are discussed. For example, we have included material on blockchain systems, and discuss their various components throughout the book. We have, again, used special boxed sections for material that can be skipped at first reading.

The text has been thoroughly reviewed, revised, and updated. In particular, all the Python code has been updated to Python3, while at the same time the channel package has been almost completely revised and simplified. The coding examples in the book leave out many details for readability, but the complete examples are available (see below). We have made sure that virtually all examples can be instantly executed through a simple script. However, it will be necessary to download and install special packages, such as Redis.

You can order a printed version of the book through Amazon.com for $40. (Note that your local Amazon cite may offer the best price.) Please refer to the book (when you need to cite it) as:

M. van Steen and A.S. Tanenbaum, Distributed Systems, 4th ed., distributed-systems.net, 2023.

Additional material

To keep things simple, all coding examples and figures (in PDF and 600 dpi PNG) are available in a single archive file (48 MB). Simply download and untar the file while keeping subdirectories and symbolic links. 

Slides will be made available within a few months. Until then, please refer to the slides for the 3rd edition.