Specialists working on different types of novel distributed computing systems will like this book. It will be of interest, for instance, to peer-to-peer (P2P) developers who want to know how a somewhat similar idea of grid computing works, and the other way around. It would also be a good choice for laymen who are looking for a good textbook on these topics. Although it was published as a second edition, this book is in fact a rebuilt, comprehensively appended, and approximately twice-as-large version of Taylor’s 2005 book [1].

With about 450 pages, this book consists of five parts, two appendices (on relevant Web sites and one cryptographic algorithm), a reference list, and an index. The introductory part surveys the basics of Internet distributed systems--mechanisms and protocols. Part 2 overviews distributed environments relevant from the viewpoint of this work: the World Wide Web (WWW), P2P, the idea of Web services, distributed object technology, and grids. Part 3 focuses on some existing P2P applications: Gnutella, Freenet, and BitTorrent; it characterizes their protocol and architectural aspects, and addresses problems related to their operation (mainly scalability, but also security). Part 4 describes frameworks that enable the creation of different distributed applications, that is, middleware: Jini, JXTA, open grid services architecture (OGSA), and protocols for Web services support, such as the simple object access protocol (SOAP). It also addresses some new concepts, such as Web 2.0, cloud computing, and ubiquitous computing. The next part shows through broad examples how they can be used.

A very attractive aspect of the book is its ability to combine basic explanations of simple ideas, such as the fundamentals of distributed applications, with quite advanced concepts, such as the SOAP protocol operation or those related to the semantic Web. Taylor and Harrison don’t over-theorize their work, which is clearly aimed at practitioners; for instance, distributed hash table-based P2P systems, eagerly studied nowadays, are barely mentioned. A nice addition is the presentation of short biographies of people who influenced the presented solutions and citations; these stand as either a strong or humorous introduction to some chapters or provide an interesting comment on a related text. A real love and admiration for the Internet and the people who make it innovative is noticeable. For people involved with the Internet, this book is a really enjoyable journey through a number of hot topics.