Distributed networking

Distributed Networking is a distributed computing network system, said to be "distributed" when the computer programming and the data to be worked on are spread out over more than one computer, usually over a network.

Prior to low-cost computer power on the desktop, computing was centralized. Although such centers still exist, distribution networking applications and data operate more efficiently over a mix of desktop workstations, local area network servers, regional servers, Web servers, and other servers.

A popular trend has been client/server computing which is simply the view that a client computer can provide certain capabilities for a user and request others from other computers that provide services for the clients. (The Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol is an example of this idea.)

See also

• Distributed data store
• Distributed file system
• Cloud computing, a more general concept whose current implementations are often dependent on data centers rather than a distributed network