What is the dIfference between a distributed system and a clustered system?

cluster-computing distributed distributed-computing
batman picture batman · Jan 27, 2014 · Viewed 14.4k times · Source

Both are defined to be a set of computers that work together and give the end users a perception of a single computer running behind it.

So what is the difference here?

Answer

peter picture peter · Jan 28, 2014

What is the difference between a car and a sports car? A cluster is a system, usually managed by a single company. Clusters have normally a very low latency and consist of server hardware. A distributed system can be anything. Having JS on the client and PHP-server code which makes up together a system is already called a distributed system by some people.

In general when working with distributed systems you work a lot with long latencies and unexpected failures (like mentioned in p2p systems). When building a cluster (or a big cluster which can be called supercomputer) you try to prevent it by using more robust hardware and better network interconnection (InfiniBand). But nevertheless, a cluster is still a distributed system. (A sports car still has 4 wheels and an engine)

Related questions

Spread vs MPI vs zeromq?

In one of the answers to Broadcast like UDP with the Reliability of TCP, a user mentions the Spread messaging API. I've also run across one called ØMQ. I also have some familiarity with MPI. So, my main question is: …

Read More
Starting remote processes in a Windows network

I have several slave machines and a master machine which together run a distributed application. Processes on each slave machine have to have a GUI and network access (I think it would be called an interactive process then). For ease …

Read More
Database cluster and load balancing

What is database clustering? If you allow the same database to be on 2 different servers how do they keep the data between synchronized. And how does this differ from load balancing from a database server perspective?

Read More