INTRODUCTION TO DISTRIBUTED

SYSTEMS
INTRODUCTION TO
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
`
Definition
Motivation for Distributed system
Architectural Categories
Characteristics, Issues, Goals,
Advantages
Disadvantages
 DEFINITION
A distributed system is a collection of independent
computers, interconnected via a network, capable of
collaborating on a task.
A distributed system can be characterized as collection
of multiple autonomous computers that communicate
over a communication network and having following
features:
✔ No common Physical clock
✔ Enhanced Reliability
✔ Increased performance/cost ratio
✔ Access to geographically remote data and resources
✔ Scalability

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DEFINITION CNTD…

Distributed system is a collection of independent

entities that cooperate to solve a problem that cannot
be solved individually.
So, basically it is nothing but a collection of computers.
DCS do not share a common memory or do not have a
common physical clock, and the only way they can
communicate is through the message passing and for
that they require a communication network
Definition of a Distributed System

A distributed system is (Tannenbaum):

A collection of independent computers
that
appears to its users as a single coherent
system.

A distributed system is (Lamport):

One in which the failure of a computer you

didn't even know existed can render your
Overview…
⚫ Distributed system connects autonomous processors by
communication network.
⚫ The software component that run on each of the
computers use the local operating system and network
protocol stack.
⚫ The distributed software is termed as middleware.
⚫ The distributed execution is the execution of the
processes across the distributed system to collectively
achieve a common goal.
 Motivation for Distributed system
⚫ Inherently distributed computation that is many
applications such as money transfer in the banking, or
reaching a consensus among the parties that are
geographically distant, the computation is inherently
distributed.
⚫ Resource sharing the sharing of the resources such as
peripherals, and a complete data set and so on and so forth.
⚫ Access the geographically remote data and resources,
such as bank database, supercomputer and so on.
⚫ Reliability enhanced reliability possibility of replicating the
resources and execution to enhance the reliability.
Architectural Categories
Computer architectures consisting of
interconnected, multiple processors are basically
of two types:
1). Tightly coupled system

2). Loosely coupled system

TIGHTLY COUPLED
SYSTEMS
In these systems, there is a single system wide
primary memory (address space) that is shared
by all the processors . Usually tightly coupled
systems are referred to as parallel processing
systems.

System-
Wide
Shared
CPU CPU memory CPU CPU

Interconnection hardware
LOOSELY COUPLED
SYSTEMS
In these systems, the processors do not share
memory, and each processor has its own local
memory .Loosely coupled systems are referred
to as distributed computing systems, or simply
distributed systems

Local memory Local memory Local memory Local memory

CPU CPU CPU CPU

Communication network
CHARACTERISTICS OF DISTRIBUTED
SYSTEM

Concurrency
No global clock
Independent failures
More reliable
Fault tolerant
Scalable
EXAMPLES OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Database Management System

Automatic Teller Machine

Network

Internet/World-Wide Web

Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing

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DATABASE MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM

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AUTOMATIC TELLER
MACHINE NETWORK

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INTERNET

intranet
ISP

backbone

satellite link

desktop computer:
server:
network link:
WORLD-WIDE-WEB

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WEB SERVERS AND WEB
BROWSERS
http://www.google.comlsearch?q=lyu
www.google.co
m
Browsers
Web servers

www.uu.s Internet
e http://www.uu.se
/
www.w3c.or
g
File system of http://www.w3c.org/Protocols/Activity.htm
www.w3c.org Protocols l

Activity.htm
l
MOBILE AND UBIQUITOUS
COMPUTING
Internet

Host intranet GSM/GPRS

Wireless LAN Home intranet
gateway

Mobile
phone
Printer
Laptop Host site
Camera
 Distributed System

A distributed system organized as middleware. The

middleware layer extends over multiple machines,
and offers each application the same interface.
GOALS:COMMON HARACTERISTICS
⚫ Making resources accessible
⚫ Openness
⚫ Transparency
⚫ Security
⚫ Scalability
⚫ Failure Handling
⚫ Concurrency
⚫ Heterogeneity
Making resources accessible
• The main goal of a distributed system is to make it
easy for the users (and applications) to access
remote resources, and to share them in a
controlled and efficient way.
• Resources can be just about anything, but typical
examples include things like printers,
computers, storage facilities, data, files, Web
pages, and networks,
Reasons to share resources.
• Economics.
OPENNESS
An open distributed system is a system that offers
services according to standard rules that describe
the syntax and semantics of those services.
Detailed interfaces of components need to be
published.
New components have to be integrated with
existing components. An open distributed
system should also be extensible.
Differences in data representation of interface types
on different processors (of different vendors) have
to be resolved.
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TRANSPARENC
Y
Distributed systems should be perceived by users
and application programmers as a whole rather
than as a collection of cooperating components.
Ability to hide the fact that process and resources
are distributed .
Transparency has different aspects.
These represent various properties that distributed
systems should have.

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Transparency in a
Distributed
System
ACCESS
TRANSPARENCY
Enables local and remote information objects to be
accessed using identical operations.

Example: File system operations in NFS.

Example: Navigation in the Web.

Example: SQL Queries

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LOCATION
TRANSPARENCY
Enables information objects to be accessed
without knowledge of their location.

Example: File system operations in NFS

Example: Pages in the Web

Example: Tables in distributed databases

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CONCURRENCY
TRANSPARENCY
Enables several processes to operate
concurrently using shared information objects
without interference between them.

Example: NFS

Example: Automatic teller machine network

Example: Database management system

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REPLICATION
TRANSPARENCY
Enables multiple instances of information
objects to be used to increase reliability and
performance without knowledge of the replicas
by users or application programs

Example: Distributed DBMS

Example: Mirroring Web Pages.

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FAILURE
TRANSPARENCY
Enables the concealment of faults

Allows users and applications to complete their

tasks despite the failure of other components.
Partial failure transparency is achievable but
complete failure transparency is not possible

Example: Database Management System

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MIGRATION
TRANSPARENCY
Allows the movement of information objects
within a system without affecting the operations
of users or application programs

Relocation Transparency:
Situation in which resources can be relocated
while they are being accessed without the user
or application noticing anything. In such
cases, the system is said to support relocation
transparency.

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PERFORMANCE
TRANSPARENCY
Allows the system to be reconfigured to
improve performance as loads vary.

Load should be evenly distributed among all

the machines.

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SCALING
TRANSPARENCY
Allows the system and applications to expand
in scale without change to the system structure
or the application algorithms.

Example: World-Wide-Web

Example: Distributed Database

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HETEROGENEITY
Variety and differences in
⚫ Networks
⚫ Computer hardware
⚫ Operating systems
⚫ Programming languages
⚫ Implementations by different developers

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SECURITY
In a distributed system, clients send requests to
access data managed by servers, resources in
the networks:
⚫ Doctors requesting records from hospitals
⚫ Users purchase products through electronic commerce
Security is required for:
⚫ Concealing the contents of messages: security and privacy
⚫ Identifying a remote user or other agent correctly
(authentication)
New challenges:
⚫ Denial of service attack
⚫ Security of mobile code
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FAILURE HANDLING
(FAULT TOLERANCE)

Hardware, software and networks fail!

Distributed systems must maintain availability
even at low levels of hardware/software/network
reliability.
Fault tolerance is achieved by
⚫ recovery
⚫ redundancy

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CONCURRENCY
Components in distributed systems are
executed in concurrent processes.
Components access and update shared
resources (e.g. variables, databases, device
drivers).
Integrity of the system may be violated if
concurrent updates are not coordinated.

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SCALABILITY
Scalability of a system can be measured along at
least three different dimensions
scalability with respect to size: meaning that we can
easily add more users and resources to the system.
geographically scalable :system is one in which the
users and resources may lie far apart.
Administratively scalable: meaning that it can still be
easy to manage even if it spans many independent
administrative organizations.
SCALING TECHNIQUES
Hiding communication latencies
⚫ Asynchronous communication
⚫ Allocate more job to client machine
Distribution
⚫ Distribution involves taking a component, splitting it
into smaller parts, and subsequently spreading those
parts across the system. An excellent example of
distribution is the Internet Domain Name System
(DNS)
Replicate
4. BASIC DESIGN ISSUES
Specific issues for distributed systems:
⚫ Naming
⚫ Communication
⚫ Software structure
⚫ System architecture
⚫ Workload allocation
⚫ Consistency maintenance

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NAMING
A name is resolved when translated into an
interpretable form for resource/object reference.
⚫ Communication identifier (IP address + port number)
⚫ Name resolution involves several translation steps
Design considerations
⚫ Choice of name space for each resource type
⚫ Name service to resolve resource names to comm. id.
Name services include naming context resolution,
hierarchical structure, resource protection

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COMMUNICATIO
N Separated components communicate with sending
processes and receiving processes for data transfer
and synchronization.
Message passing: send and receive primitives
⚫ synchronous or blocking
⚫ asynchronous or non-blocking
⚫ Abstractions defined: channels, sockets, ports.
Communication patterns: client-server
communication (e.g., RPC, function shipping)
and group multicast

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SOFTWARE STRUCTURE
Layers in centralized computer systems:

Applications

Middleware

Operating system

Computer and Network Hardware

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SOFTWARE STRUCTURE
Layers and dependencies in distributed systems:

Applications

Open
Distributed programming services
support

Open system kernel services

Computer and network hardware

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 Challenges
• Performance
• Concurrency
• Failures
• Scalability
• System updates/growth
• Heterogeneity
• Openness
• Multiplicity of ownership,
authority
• Security
• Quality of service/user experience
• Transparency
• Debugging
ADVANTAGES OF DISTRIBUTED
SYSTEM
Information Sharing among Distributed Users
Resource Sharing
Extensibility and Incremental growth
Shorter Response Time and Higher Output
Higher Reliability
Better Flexibility’s in meeting User’s needs
Better price/performance ratio
Scalability
Transparency

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DISADVANTAGES OF
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM
Difficulties of developing distributed
software
Networking Problem
Security Problems
Performance
Openness
Reliability and Fault Tolerance

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REFERENCES:
Tanenbaum, Andrew S., and Maarten
Van Steen. Distributed systems:
principles and paradigms. Prentice-Hall,
2007.
Sinha, Pradeep K. Distributed operating systems:
concepts and design. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd., 1998.
NOC:Distributed Systems,NPTEL