Book excerpt: Many applications follow the distributed computing paradigm, in which parts of the application are executed on different network-interconnected computers. The extension of these applications in terms of number of users or size has led to an unprecedented increase in the scale of the infrastructure that supports them. Large-Scale Distributed Computing and Applications: Models and Trends offers a coherent and realistic image of today's research results in large scale distributed systems, explains state-of-the-art technological solutions for the main issues regarding large scale distributed systems, and presents the benefits of using large scale distributed systems and the development process of scientific and commercial distributed applications.