Naming

Distributed Software Systems

Naming Entities
A name in a distributed system is a string of bits

or characters that is used to refer to an entity

Types of names

Address: an access point of an entity

Identifiers: a name that uniquely identifies an entity

An identifier refers to at most one entity
Each entity is referred to by at most one identifier
An identifier always refers to the same entity

Human-friendly names
Location-independent name: a name that is independent
from its addresses
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Name Spaces and Name Resolution

Names are organized into name spaces
A name space can be represented as a labeled,

directed graph with two types of nodes

Leaf nodes and directory nodes

Absolute vs relative path names

Local names vs global names

Name Resolution: the process of looking up a name

Closure mechanism: knowing where and how to start name

resolution

Name Spaces contd

A general naming graph with a single root node.

Linking and Mounting

The concept of a symbolic link explained in a naming graph.

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Linking and Mounting

Mounting remote name spaces through a specific process

protocol.

Merging Name Spaces

Organization of the DEC Global Name Service

Implementing Name Spaces

Naming service: a service that allows users and

processes to add, remove, and lookup names

Name spaces for large-scale widely distributed

systems are typically organized hierarchically

Three layers used to implement such distributed

name spaces

Global layer: root node and its children

Administrational layer: directory nodes within a single
organization
Managerial layer

Name Space Distribution

An example partitioning of the DNS name space,

including Internet-accessible files, into three layers.
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Name Space Distribution (2)

Item

Global

Administrational

Managerial

Geographical scale of network

Worldwide

Organization

Department

Total number of nodes

Few

Many

Vast numbers

Responsiveness to lookups

Seconds

Milliseconds

Immediate

Update propagation

Lazy

Immediate

Immediate

Number of replicas

Many

None or few

None

Is client-side caching applied?

Yes

Yes

Sometimes

A comparison between name servers for implementing nodes from a

large-scale name space partitioned into a global layer, as an
administrational layer, and a managerial layer.
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Implementation of Name Resolution

Iterative vs recursive name resolution
Recursive name resolution puts a higher

performance demand on each name server

Too high for global layer name servers

Advantages of recursive name resolution

Caching is more effective

Communication costs may be reduced

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Implementation of Name Resolution (1)

The principle of iterative name resolution.

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Implementation of Name Resolution (2)

The principle of recursive name resolution.

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Implementation of Name Resolution (3)

Server for
node

Should resolve

Looks up

Passes to
child

Receives and
caches

Returns to
requester

cs

<ftp>

#<ftp>

--

--

#<ftp>

vu

<cs,ftp>

#<cs>

<ftp>

#<ftp>

#<cs>
#<cs, ftp>

ni

<vu,cs,ftp>

#<vu>

<cs,ftp>

#<cs>
#<cs,ftp>

#<vu>
#<vu,cs>
#<vu,cs,ftp>

root

<ni,vu,cs,ftp>

#<nl>

<vu,cs,ftp>

#<vu>
#<vu,cs>
#<vu,cs,ftp>

#<nl>
#<nl,vu>
#<nl,vu,cs>
#<nl,vu,cs,ftp>

Recursive name resolution of <nl, vu, cs, ftp>. Name servers

cache intermediate results for subsequent lookups.
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Implementation of Name Resolution (4)

The comparison between recursive and iterative name

resolution with respect to communication costs.
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Example System: DNS

Domain Name System (DNS)

Host name to IP address translation

Name space organized as a hierarchical rooted tree

Name space divided into non-overlapping zones

Name servers implement the global and administrational

layers
Managerial layer not part of DNS
Each zone has a name server, which is typically replicated
Updates take place at the primary name server for a zone
Secondary name servers request the primary name server to
transfer its content

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The DNS Name Space

Type of
record

Associated
entity

Description

SOA

Zone

Holds information on the represented zone

Host

Contains an IP address of the host this node represents

MX

Domain

Refers to a mail server to handle mail addressed to this node

SRV

Domain

Refers to a server handling a specific service

NS

Zone

Refers to a name server that implements the represented zone

CNAME

Node

Symbolic link with the primary name of the represented node

PTR

Host

Contains the canonical name of a host

HINFO

Host

Holds information on the host this node represents

TXT

Any kind

Contains any entity-specific information considered useful

The most important types of resource records

forming the contents of nodes in the DNS name
space.

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DNS Implementation (1)

An excerpt
from the
DNS
database
for the
zone
cs.vu.nl.

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DNS Implementation (2)

Name

Record type

Record value

cs.vu.nl

NS

solo.cs.vu.nl

solo.cs.vu.nl

130.37.21.1

Part of the description for the vu.nl domain

which contains the cs.vu.nl domain.

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Example System: X.500

An example of a directory service

Analogy: X.500 is to DNS as the yellow pages are to a telephone

book

Each directory entry is made up of a collection of (attribute,

value) pairs

Attributes can be single-valued or multiple-valued

Collection of all directory entries is called a Directory

Information Base (DIB)

Each entry has a globally unique name formed by a sequence

of naming attributes (Relative Distinguished Names or RDN)

Lookup operations

Read: Read a single record given its pathname in the Directory

Information Tree (DIT), I.e. hierarchical name space formed by
directory entries
List: return the names of all outgoing edges of a given node in
the DIT
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The X.500 Name Space (1)

Attribute

Abbr.

Value

Country

NL

Locality

Amsterdam

Organization

Vrije Universiteit

OrganizationalUnit

OU

Math. & Comp. Sc.

CommonName

CN

Main server

Mail_Servers

--

130.37.24.6, 192.31.231,192.31.231.66

FTP_Server

--

130.37.21.11

WWW_Server

--

130.37.21.11

A simple example of a X.500 directory entry

using X.500 naming conventions.
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The X.500 Name Space (2)

Part of the directory

information tree.

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The X.500 Name Space (3)

Two directory entries having Host_Name as RDN.
Attribute

Value

Attribute

Value

Country

NL

Country

NL

Locality

Amsterdam

Locality

Amsterdam

Organization

Vrije Universiteit

Organization

Vrije Universiteit

OrganizationalUnit

Math. & Comp. Sc.

OrganizationalUnit

Math. & Comp. Sc.

CommonName

Main server

CommonName

Main server

Host_Name

star

Host_Name

zephyr

Host_Address

192.31.231.42

Host_Address

192.31.231.66

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X.500 implementation
Similar to DNS

The DIT is partitioned and distributed across several servers

known as Directory Service Agents (DSA)
Clients are represented by name resolvers called Directory
User Agents (DUA)

Differences from DNS

Operations for searching through a DIB given a set of criteria

that attributes should meet
Searching is an expensive operation since several leaf nodes of
a DIT will need to be accessed

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an

application-level protocol that is a simplified version of

X.500

Becoming a de facto standard for Internet-based directory

services
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Locating Mobile Entities

Consider an entity that changes its location

E.g. ftp.cs.vu.nl moves to another domain

Two choices

Cannot change name

Record the address of the new machine in the DNS
database for cs.vu.nl
If name changes again, DNS entry will have to be changed again
Record the name of the new machine in the database, I.e.
use a symbolic link
Inefficient lookups

Traditional naming services such as DNS cannot

cope well with mobile entities

Problems arise because of the direct mapping between

human-friendly names and the address of entities
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Naming versus Locating Entities

a)

Direct, single level mapping between names and addresses.

b)

Two-level mapping using identities.

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Locating Entities
Simple Solutions that work in a LAN environment

Broadcasting & Multicasting

Message containing identifier of the entity is broadcast;
machine with an access point for the entity replies with the
address of the access point
ARP protocol for finding the data-link address of a machine
given the IP address

Forwarding pointers
When an entity moves from A to B, it leaves behind a
reference to its new location at B

Home-based Approaches

Home agent keeps track of current location of mobile

entity

Hierarchical Approaches
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Forwarding Pointers (1)

The principle of forwarding pointers using (proxy,

skeleton) pairs.

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Forwarding Pointers (2)

Redirecting a forwarding pointer, by storing a

shortcut in a proxy.

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Home-Based Approaches

The principle of Mobile IP.

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Hierarchical Approaches (1)

Hierarchical organization of a location service into

domains, each having an associated directory node.
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Hierarchical Approaches (2)

An example of storing information of an entity having

two addresses in different leaf domains.
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Hierarchical Approaches (3)

Looking up a location in a hierarchically organized

location service.

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Hierarchical Approaches (4)

a)

An insert request is forwarded to the first node that

knows about entity E.

b)

A chain of forwarding pointers to the leaf node is

created.
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Pointer Caches (1)

Caching a reference to a directory node of the

lowest-level domain in which an entity will reside
most of the time.

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Pointer Caches (2)

A cache entry that needs to be invalidated because

it returns a nonlocal address, while such an
address is available.

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Scalability Issues

The scalability issues related to uniformly placing subnodes of a

partitioned root node across the network covered by a
location service.

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