Advantage of Distributed Systems over Centralized Ones

Advantage of Distributed Systems over Centralized Ones-->
1. Speed. When used to implement parallel processing where only goal is to achieve
maximum speed on a single problem, distributed systems can achieve very high specd as
compared to the centralized ones.
2. Inherent Distribution- Another reason for building a distributed system is that some
applications are inherently distributed. Banking, Airline reservation etc. are examples of the
 applications that are inherently distribute . When all the branches of a bank are connected,
  we have a commercial distributed system.
3. Reliability- Another potential advantage of a distributed system over a centralized
 one is higher reliability. By distributing the workload over many machines, a single chip
failure will bring down at most one machine, leaving the rest intact. Ideally, if 5 percent of
the machines are down at any moment, the system should be able to continue to work with
a 5 percent loss in performance. For critical applications, such as control of nuclear reactors
or aircraft, using a distributed system to achieve high reliability may be a dominant consideration
4. Incremental Growth. Finally, incremental growth is also potentially a big plus. Often
a company will buy a mainframe with the intention of doing all its work on it. If the company
prospers and the workload grows, at a certain point the mainframe will no longer be adequate.
The only solutions are to either replace the mainframe with a larger one (if it exists), or add
a second mainframe. Both of these can cause management difficulties with the company's
operations. In contrast, with a distributed system, it may be possible to simply add more
processors to the system, thus allowing it to expand gradually as the need arises.