Open Distributed Systems

Simple tasks like running a program or storing and retrieving data become much more complicated when you do them on collections of computers, rather than single machines. Distributed systems have become a key architectural construct, but they affect everything a program would normally do.

Distributed computing paradigms for sharing resources such as Clouds, Grids, Peer-to-Peer systems, or voluntary computing are becoming increasingly popular. While there are some success stories such as PlanetLab, OneLab, BOINC, BitTorrent, and SETI@home, a widespread use of these technologies for business applications has not yet been achieved. In a business environment, mechanisms are needed to provide incentives to potential users for participating in such networks.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th IFIP WG 6.1 International Conference on Formal Methods for Open Object-Based Distributed Systems, FMOODS 2009, and 29th IFIP WG 6.1 Formal Techniques for Networked and Distributed Systems, FORTE 2009, held in Lisboa, Portugal, in June 2009. The 12 revised full papers presented together with 6 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions. The papers cover topics such as formal verification, algorithms and implementations, modeling and testing, process algebra and calculus as well as analysis of distributed systems.

This practical new book offers the distributed-computing fundamental knowledge for individuals to connect with one another in a more secure and efficient way than with traditional blockchains. These new forms of secure, scalable blockchains promise to replace centralized institutions to connect individuals without the risks of user manipulations or data extortions.