What is the difference between a distributed system and distributed computing?
I found out the following definitions of, respectively, distributed system and distributed computing:
Distributed system: a collection of independent computers that are connected with an interconnection network.
Distributed computing: a method of computer processing in which different parts of a computer program are run on two or more computers that are communicating with each other over a network.
However, it's not clear to me what the differences between the two are. What is the difference between a distributed system and distributed computing?
Answer
How about the SO tag definitions?
distributed-computing: Distributed computing is where multiple computing units are connected to achieve a common task. The larger computing power enables a lot more tasks to be performed than in a single unit, and searches can be coordinated for efficiency. Successes usually give the finder credit.
Distributed computing projects include hunting large prime number, and analysing DNA codes.
distributed-system: A distributed system consists of a collection of autonomous computers, connected through a network and distribution middleware, which enables computers to coordinate their activities and to share the resources of the system, so that users perceive the system as a single, integrated computing facility.
I tend to think of distributed computing as more algorithm focused (like a submarine simulation) and distributed systems as more of a way to design systems for high availability and storing or processing big data (like an internet search engine).