Distributed Systems are a complex topic. There's abundant research about it but sometimes it is hard for a beginner to know where to start. I would like to outline the main concepts of distributed systems, so the interested person can have a clear path on how to start their own research as well.

In this talk I will review the different models: asynchronous vs. synchronous distributed systems; message passing vs shared memory communication; failure detectors and leader election problems; consensus and different kinds of replication.

I will also review a series of books on distributed systems in order to recommend the best one according to the topics we would like to learn about, or the problems we would like to solve.

The goal of the talk is to set a good foundation for people interested in learning more about distributed systems.