 | You can get a digital (personalized) copy of this book for free. A complete set of slides in PDF and PPTX is also available. |
This page refers to the 4th edition of Distributed Systems
Version 4.03 has been released (January 2025) with various small corrections.
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.) As an experiment, there is also a Kindle version available at $2.99.
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 (52 MB). Simply download and unzip the file while keeping subdirectories and symbolic links.
Slides are available in PDF and PPTX, bundled in a single archive file (45 MB). Note that the PPTX files have been converted from the PDF files, making the PDF files much better when it comes to math and certain fonts. I have salvaged the PPTX files manually to make them look reasonably good. The Latex source code for generating your own set of slides can be found here. Again, unzip the file (in the same directory as for the figures and codes). A README file contains further instructions.