Distributed System
A system whose components coordinate across multiple networked computers.
Plain English
Several computers cooperate while messages can be delayed or lost.
In context
Distributed systems must handle partial failure concurrency latency and uncertain communication.
Example
“The payment workflow is a distributed system across four services.”
When you'll hear this
- architecture review
- reliability planning
- incident response
Common misunderstanding
Running on several machines creates challenges that local function calls do not have.
Commonly used by
Related terms
Updated: 2026-08-25
