About the book: The fourth edition of this text continues to provide a comprehensive source of material on the principles and practice of distributed computer systems and the exciting new developments based on them, using a wealth of modern case studies to illustrate their design and development. Highlights of the fourth edition include: A Three entirely new chapters on peer-to-peer systems, web services, and mobile and ubiquitous systems. A More than 25 detailed case studies of well-known systems, eight of them new, including studies of the Grid, Cooltown, Bluetooth andthe (in)security of the WiFi WEP protocol. A Updated coverage of XML and its security extensions, the Advanced Encryption Standard and security design for ubiquitous systems.Distributed Systems provides students of computer science and engineering with the skills they will need to design and maintain software for distributed applications.It will also be invaluable to software engineers and systems designers wishing to understand new and future developments in the field.