Virtually every computing system today is part of a distributed system. Programmers, developers, a nd engineers need to understa nd the underlying principles a nd paradigms as well as the real-wo r ld application of those principles. Now, internationally renowned expert a ndrew S. Tanenbaum – with colleague Martin van Steen – presents a complete introduction that identifies the seven key principles of distributed systems, with extensive examples of each. Adds a completely new chapter on architecture to address the principle of o r ganizing distributed systems. Provides extensive new material on peer-to-peer systems, grid computing a nd Web services, virtualization, a nd application-level multicasting. up da tes material on clock synchronization, data-centric consistency, object-ba sed distributed systems, a nd file systems a nd Web systems coo r dination. Fo r all developers, software engineers, a nd architects who need an in-depth understa nding of distributed systems.