Distributed SYSTEM

MODELS
 SYSTEM MODEL

Topics
 Introduction

 Architectural Models

 Fundamental Models
 SYSTEM MODEL

Introduction
 An architectural model of a distributed
system is concerned with the placement of
its parts and the relationships between
them.

 Examples include:
 Client-Server model
 Peer-to-Peer model
 SYSTEM MODEL

Introduction
 Variations of client-sever model can be
formed by:
 The partition of data or replication at
cooperative servers
 The caching of data by proxy servers and
clients
 The use of mobile code and mobile agents
 The requirement to add or remove mobile
devices in a convenient manner
 SYSTEM MODEL

Introduction
 Fundamental Models deal with a more formal
description of the properties that are common in
all of the architectural models.

 Some of these properties in distributed systems

are:
 There is no global time in a distributed system.
 All communication between processes is achieved
by means of messages.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Introduction
 Message communication in distributed
systems has the following properties:
 Delay

 Failure

 Security attacks
 SYSTEM MODEL

Introduction
 Message communication issues are addressed
by three models:
 Interaction Model
 It deals with performance and with the difficulty of
setting of time limits in a distributed system.

 Failure Model
 It attempts to give a precise specification of the faults
that can be exhibited by processes and
communication channels.

 Security Model
 It discusses possible threats to processes and
communication channels.
 Architectural Models-Intro
 The architecture of a system is its structure in
terms of separately specified components.

 The overall goal is to ensure that the structure will

meet present and likely future demands on it.
 Major concerns are to make the system:
 Reliable
 Manageable
 Adaptable
 Cost-effective
 SYSTEM MODEL

Architectural Models-Intro

 An architectural Model of a distributed system

first simplifies and abstracts the functions of the
individual components of a distributed system.

 An initial simplification is achieved by classifying

processes as:
 Server processes
 Client processes
 Peer processes
 Cooperate and communicate in a symmetric manner
to perform a task.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Software Layers
 Software architecture referred to:
 The structure of software as layers or modules in
a single computer.
 The services offered and requested between
processes located in the same or different
computers.

 Software architecture is breaking up the

complexity of systems by designing them
through layers and services.
 Layer: a group of related functional components.
 Service: functionality provided to the next layer.
(Figure 1)
 SYSTEM MODEL

Software Layers

Layer N

Layer 2

(services offered to above layer)

Layer 1

Figure 1. Software layers

 SYSTEM MODEL

Software Layers
 Platform
 The lowest-level hardware and software
layers are often referred to as a platform
for distributed systems and applications.
 These low-level layers provide services to
the layers above them, which are
implemented independently in each
computer.

 These low-level layers bring the system’s

programming interface up to a level that
facilitates communication and coordination
between processes.
(Figure 2)
 SYSTEM MODEL

Software Layers

Applications, services

Middleware

Operating system

Platform

Computer and network hardware

Figure 2. Software and hardware service layers in distributed systems
 SYSTEM MODEL

Software Layers
 Middleware
 A layer of software whose purpose is
 to mask heterogeneity presented in
distributed systems.
 To provide a convenient programming
model to application developers.

 Major Examples of middleware are:

 Sun RPC (Remote Procedure Calls)
 OMG CORBA (Common Object Request
Broker Architecture)
 Microsoft D-COM (Distributed Component
Object Model)
 Sun Java RMI
 Python (RAY)
 SYSTEM MODEL

CLIENT/SERVER MODEL
 Definition
 Computing solution in which the presentation,
presentation logic, application logic, data
manipulation, and data layers are distributed
between client PCs and one or more servers

 a client/server system in which

the data and data manipulation layers are
placed on the server, and other layers are
placed on the
client.
 SYSTEM MODEL

CLIENT/SERVER MODEL
 Example
 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 The problem of client-server model is placing a service in a
server at a single address that does not scale well beyond
the capacity of computer host and bandwidth of network
connections.

 To address this problem, several variations of client-server

model have been proposed.
 Services provided by multiple servers
 Services may be implemented as several server
processes in separate host computers interacting as
necessary to provide a service to client processes.

 E.g. cluster that can be used for search engines.

(Figure 6)
 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

Service

Server

Client

Server

Client
Server

Figure 6. A service provided by multiple servers.

 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 Proxy servers and caches
 A cache is a store of recently used data objects.

 When a new object is received at a computer it is

added to the cache store, replacing some existing
objects if necessary.

 When an object is needed by a client process the

caching service first checks the cache and
supplies the object from there if an up-to-date
copy is available.

 If not, an up-to-date copy is fetched.

 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 Caches may be collected with each client

or they may be located in a proxy server
that can be shared by several clients.

Client Web
server
Proxy
server

Client Web
server
Figure 7. Web proxy server
 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 Mobile code
 Applets are a well-known and widely used
example of mobile code.

 Applets downloaded to clients give good

interactive response

 Mobile codes such as Applets are a

potential security threat to the local
resources in the destination computer.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

a) client request results in the downloading of applet code

Client Web
Applet code server

b) client interacts with the applet

Web
Client Applet server

Figure 8. Web applets

 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 Mobile agents
 A running program (code and data) that
travels from one computer to another in a
network carrying out of a task, usually on
behalf of some other process.

 Examples of the tasks that can be done by

mobile agents are:
 To collect information.
 To install and maintain software maintained
on the computers within an organization.
 To compare the prices of products from a
number of vendors.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 Mobile agents are a potential security
threat to the resources in computers that
they visit.

 The environment receiving a mobile agent

should decide on which of the local
resources to be allowed to use.

 Mobile agents themselves can be

vulnerable
 They may not be able to complete their task
if they are refused access to the information
they need.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 Mobile devices and spontaneous
interoperation
 Mobile devices are hardware computing
components that move between physical
locations and thus networks, carrying
software component with them.

 Many of these devices are capable of

wireless networking ranges of hundreds of
meters such as WiFi (IEEE 802.11), or
about 10 meters such as Bluetooth.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 Network computers
 It downloads its operating system and any
application software needed by the user
from a remote file server.

 Applications are run locally but the files

are managed by a remote file server.

 Network applications such as a Web

browser can also be run.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 Thin clients
 It is a software layer that supports an user
interface on a computer that is local to the user
while executing application programs on a remote
computer.

 This architecture has the same low management

and hardware costs as the network computer
scheme.

 Instead of downloading the code of applications

into the user’s computer, it runs them on a
compute server.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Variants of Client Sever Model

 Compute server is a powerful computer that has
the capacity to run large numbers of application
simultaneously.

 The compute server will be a multiprocessor or

cluster computer running a multiprocessor
version of an operation system such as UNIX or
Windows.

Compute server
Network computer or PC

Thin network Application

Client Process

Figure 9. Thin clients and compute servers

Peer-to-Peer Computing
The Peer-to-Peer Model

Applications based on peer processes

Not Client-Server
processes that have largely identical functionality
Definitions
Everything except the
client/server model
Network of nodes with
equivalent
capabilities/responsibili
ties (symmetrical)
Nodes are both Servers
and clients called
“Servents”
Direct exchange of
information between
hosts at the edge of the
Internet
Definitions (cont.)
A transient network that allows a group of computer
users to connect with each other and collaborate by
sharing resources (CPU, storage, content).
The connected peers construct a virtual overlay
network on top of the underlying network
infrastructure
Examples of overlays:
BGP routers and their peering relationships
Content distribution networks (CDNs)
And P2P apps !
Overlay Networks
An overlay network is a
set of logical connections
between end hosts

Proximity not necessarily

taken into account
Overlays: All in the application layer

Design flexibility

Topology
Protocol
Messaging over TCP,
UDP, ICMP

Underlying physical
net is transparent to
developer
P2P Goals
Cost reduction through cost sharing
Client/Server: Server bears most of the cost
P2P: Cost spread over all the peers (+Napster, ++Gnutella,…)

Interoperability
for the aggregation of diverse resources (storage, CPU, …)

Increased autonomy
independence from servers, hence providers (e.g., A way
around censorship, licensing restrictions, etc.)
Goals (cont.)
Anonymity/privacy
Difficult to ensure with a central server
Required by users who do not want a server/provider to know
their involvement in the system

Dynamism and Ad hoc communications

Resources (e.g., compute nodes) enter and leave the system
continuously
P2P systems typically do not rely on an established
infrastructure
they build their own, e.g. logical overlay in CAN
P2P Classification
Degree of P2P decentralization
Hybrid decentralized P2P
Purely decentralized P2P
Partially centralized P2P
Degree of P2P structure
Structured P2P
Loosely structured P2P
Unstructured P2P
Hybrid decentralized P2P
Central server facilitates the interaction b/w peers.
Central server performs the lookups and identifies
the nodes of the network.
example: Napster
(-) Single point of failure, scalability?, …
Purely decentralized P2P
network nodes perform the same tasks (Servents)
no central coordination activity
examples: original Gnutella, Freenet
(-) data consistency?, Manageability?, Security?,
Comm. overhead
Partially centralized P2P
some of the nodes assume a more important role
Supernodes act as local central indexes
examples: Kazaa, recent Gnutella
Unstructured P2P
data is distributed randomly over the peers and
broadcasting mechanisms are used for searching.
examples: Napster, Gnutella, KaZaa

Reporting a file list

Structured P2P
Network topology is tightly controlled and files are
placed at precisely specified locations.
Provide a mapping between the file identifier and
location
Examples: Chord, Tapestry, Pastry, etc.
Loosely Structured P2P
Between structured and unstructured
File locations are affected by routing hints, but they
are not completely specified.
example: Freenet
P2P Applications
File Sharing
Communication
Collaboration

Computation

Databases
Others
P2P File Sharing (cont.)
Examples of P2P file sharing applications:
Napster
disruptive; proof of concept
Gnutella
open source
KaZaA
at some point, more KaZaAtraffic than Web traffic!
eDonkey
popular in Europe
BitTorrent:
53% of all P2P traffic in June 2004 was BitTorrent traffic
and many others…
P2P Communication
Instant Messaging (IM)
User A runs IM client on her PC
Intermittently connects to Internet; gets new IP
address for each connection
Registers herself with “system”
Learns from “system”that user B in her “buddy list”is
active
User A initiates direct TCP connection with User B: P2P
User A and User B chat.
Can also be voice, video and text.

Audio-Video Conferencing
Example: Voice-over-IP (Skype)
P2P Databases
Fragments large database over physically distributed
nodes
Overcomes limitations of distributed DBMS
Static topology
Heavy administration work
Dissemination of data sources over the Internet
Each peer is a node with a database
Set of peers changes often (site availability, usage patterns)
Examples:
AmbientDB (http://homepages.cwi.nl/~boncz/ambientdb.html)
XPeer: self-organizing XML DB
What is a DHT?
Hash Table
data structure that maps “keys” to “values”

Interface
put(key, value)
get(key)

Distributed Hash Table (DHT)

similar, but spread across the Internet
challenge: locate content
What is a DHT? (cont.)
Single-node hash table:
Key = hash (data)
put(key, value)
get(key)->value
Distributed Hash Table (DHT):
Key = hash (data)
Lookup (key) -> node-IP@
Route (node-IP@, PUT, key, value)
Route (node-IP@, GET, key) -> value
Idea:
Assign particular nodes to hold particular content (or reference
to content)
Every node supports a routing function (given a key, route
messages to node holding key)
What is a DHT? (cont.)
DHT in action
DHT in action: put()
DHT in action: put()
DHT in action: put()
DHT in action: get()
Iterative vs. Recursive Routing
Resource Management

Focus here is on p2p content

distribution systems

Main resources to be managed:

Content
Storage capacity
Bandwidth
Resource Management (cont.)
Content management: deletion, update
and versioning
Often not supported for security, robustness
to attacks, lack of synchronization between
peers
Update and deletion provided to publishers
Complex content history archival
(OceanStore)
Napster
Hybrid decentralized,
instructure.
Combination of client/server
and P2P approaches
A network of registered
users running a client
software, and a central
directory server
The server maintains 3
tables:
(File_Index, File_Metadata)
(User_ID, User_Info)
(User_ID, File_Index)
Gnutella
Pure decentralized, unstructured
Characteristic:
Few nodes with high connectivity.
Most nodes with sparse connectivity.

Goal: distributed and anonymous file sharing

Each application instance (node) :
stores/serves files
routes queries to its neighbors
responds to request queries
Gnutella (cont.)
Gnutella (cont.)
Advantages:
Robustness to random node failure
Completeness (constrained by the TTL)
Disadvantages:
Communication overhead
Network partition (controlled flooding)
Security
File Sharing in a P2P system

Need for a Reputation Management scheme

Future Research Directions
P2P research is an exciting area with many open
problems and opportunities, including the design
of:
New distributed object placement and query routing
New hash table data structures
􀃆 and algorithms
Efficient security and privacy
Semantic grouping of information in P2P networks
Incentive mechanisms and reputation systems
Convergence of Grid and P2P systems
Providing transactional and atomic guarantees on P2P
 SYSTEM MODEL

Fundamental Models

 Introduction
 Interaction Model
 Failure Model
 Security Model
 SYSTEM MODEL

Fundamental Models-Intro
 Fundamental Models are concerned with a
more formal description of the properties
that are common in all of the architectural
models.

 All architectural models are composed of

processes that communicate with each
other by sending messages over a
computer networks.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Fundamental Models-Intro
 Aspects of distributed systems that are
discussed in fundamental models are:
 Interaction model
 Computation occurs within processes.
 The processes interact by passing
messages, resulting in:
• Communication (information flow)
• Coordination (synchronization and ordering of
activities) between processes
 Interaction model reflects the facts that
communication takes place with delays.

 Failure model
 Failure model defines and classifies the
faults.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Fundamental Models-Intro

 Security model
 Security model defines and classifies the
forms of attacks.

 It provides a basis for analysis of threats to

a system

 It is used to design of systems that are able

to resist threats.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model
 Distributed systems are composed of many
processes, interacting in the following
ways:
 Multiple server processes may cooperate
with one another to provide a service
 E.g. Domain Name Service
 A set of peer processes may cooperate
with one another to achieve a common
goal
 E.g. voice conferencing
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model

 Significant factors affecting interacting

processes in a distributed system are:
 Communication performance is often a
limiting characteristic.

 It is impossible to maintain a single global

notion of time.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model-Communication Channels

 Performance of communication channels
 The communication channels in our model
are realized in a variety of ways in
distributed systems, for example
 By an implementation of streams
 By simple message passing over a
computer network
 Communication over a computer network
has the performance characteristics such
as:
 Latency
• The delay between the start of a message’s
transmission from one process to the beginning
of its receipt by another.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model-Communication Channels

 Bandwidth
• The maximum amount of information that can
be transmitted over a computer network in a
given time.
• Communication channels using the same
network, have to share the available bandwidth.

 Jitter
• The variation in the time taken to deliver a
series of messages.
• It is relevant to multimedia data.
For example, if consecutive samples of
audio data are played with differing time
intervals, then the sound will be badly
distorted.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model-Computer Clock

 Computer clocks and timing events
 Each computer in a distributed system has
its own internal clock, which can be used
by local processes to obtain the value of
the current time.

 Two processes running on different

computers can associate timestamp with
their events.

 Even if two processes read their clock at

the same time, their local clocks may
supply different time.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model-Computer Clock

 This is because computer clock drift from perfect time and
their drift rates differ from one another.

 Clock drift rate refers to the relative amount that a computer

clock differs from a perfect reference clock.

 Even if the clocks on all the computers in a distributed

system are set to the same time initially, their clocks would
eventually vary quite significantly unless corrections are
applied.

 There are several techniques to correct time on

computer clocks.
 For example, computers may use radio signal
receivers to get readings from GPS (Global
Positioning System) with an accuracy about 1
microsecond.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model-Variations
 Two variants of the interaction model
 In a distributed system it is hard to set
time limits on the time taken for process
execution, message delivery or clock drift.

 Two models of time assumption in

distributed systems are:
 Synchronous distributed systems
• It has a strong assumption of time
• The time to execute each step of a process has
known lower and upper bounds.
• Each message transmitted over a channel is
received within a known bounded time.
• Each process has a local clock whose drift rate
from real time has a known bound.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model

 Asynchronous distributed system

• It has no assumption about time.

• There is no bound on process execution speeds.

Each step may take an arbitrary long time.

• There is no bound on message transmission delays.

A message may be received after an arbitrary long
time.

• There is no bound on clock drift rates.

The drift rate of a clock is arbitrary.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model
 Event ordering
 In many cases, we are interested in
knowing whether an event (sending or
receiving a message) at one process
occurred before, after, or concurrently with
another event at another process.

 The execution of a system can be

described in terms of events and their
ordering despite the lack of accurate
clocks.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model
 For example, consider a mailing list with users X, Y,
Z, and A.
1. User X sends a message with the subject Meeting.

2. Users Y and Z reply by sending a message with the subject

RE: Meeting.

• In real time, X’s message was sent first, Y reads it and replies;
Z reads both X’s message and Y’s reply and then sends
another reply, which references both X’s and Y’s messages.

• But due to the independent delays in message delivery, the

messages may be delivered in the order is shown in figure 10.

• It shows user A might see the two messages in the wrong

order.
(Figure 10)
 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model

send receive receive

X
1 m1 4
m2
send
2 3 receive Physical
Y
receive time

send
Z
receive receive

m3 m1 m2
A
receive receive receive
t1 t2 t3

Figure 10. Real-time ordering of events.

 SYSTEM MODEL

Interaction Model
• Some users may view two messages in the wrong order,
for example, user A might see

• Item is a sequence number that shows the order of

receiving emails.

Item From Subject

23 Z Re: Meeting
24 X Meeting
26 Y Re: Meeting
 SYSTEM MODEL

Failure Model
 In a distributed system both processes and
communication channels may fail – That is,
they may depart from what is considered
to be correct or desirable behavior.

 Types of failures:
 Omission Failures
 Arbitrary Failures
 Timing Failures
 SYSTEM MODEL

Failure Model
 Omission failure
 Omission failures refer to cases when a
process or communication channel fails to
perform actions that it is supposed to do.

 The chief omission failure of a process is

to crash. In case of the crash, the process
has halted and will not execute any further
steps of its program.

 Another type of omission failure is related

to the communication which is called
communication omission failure shown in
Figure 11.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Failure Model
process p process q

send m receive

Communication channel
Outgoing message buffer Incoming message buffer

Figure 11. Processes and channels.

 The communication channel produces an omission failure if

it does not transport a message from “p”s outgoing
message buffer to “q”’s incoming message buffer.

 This is known as “dropping messages” and is generally

caused by lack of buffer space at the receiver or at a
gateway or by a network transmission error, detected by a
checksum carried with the message data.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Failure Model
 Arbitrary failure
 Arbitrary failure is used to describe the
worst possible failure semantics, in which
any type of error may occur.
 E.g. a process may set a wrong values in its
data items, or it may return a wrong value in
response to an invocation.

 Communication channel can suffer from

arbitrary failures.
 E.g. message contents may be corrupted or
non-existent messages may be delivered or
real messages may be delivered more than
once.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Failure Model
 The omission failures are classified
together with arbitrary failures shown
below
Class of failure Affects Description
Fail-stop Process Process halts and remains halted. Other processes may
detect this state.
Crash Process Process halts and remains halted. Other processes may
not be able to detect this state.
Omission Channel A message inserted in an outgoing message buffer never
arrives at the other end’s incoming message buffer.
Send-omission Process A process completes a send, but the message is not put
in its outgoing message buffer.
Receive-omission Process A message is put in a process’s incoming message
buffer, but that process does not receive it.
Arbitrary Process or Process/channel exhibits arbitrary behaviour: it may
(complex) channel send/transmit arbitrary messages at arbitrary times,
commit omissions; a process may stop or take an
incorrect step.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Failure Model
 Timing failure
 Timing failures are applicable in
synchronized distributed systems where
time limits are set on process execution
time, message delivery time and clock drift
rate.

Class of Failure Affects Description

Clock Process Process’s local clock exceeds the bounds on its

rate of drift from real time.
Performance Process Process exceeds the bounds on the interval
between two steps.
Performance Channel A message’s transmission takes longer than the
stated bound.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Failure Model
 Masking failure
 It is possible to construct reliable services
from components that exhibit failure.
 E.g. multiple servers that hold replicas of
data can continue to provide a service when
one of them crashes.

 A service masks a failure, either by hiding

it altogether or by converting it into a more
acceptable type of failure.
 E.g. checksums are used to mask corrupted
messages- effectively converting an
arbitrary failure into an omission failure.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Security Model
 The security of a distributed system can be
achieved by securing the processes and
the channels used in their interactions.

 Also, by protecting the objects that they

encapsulate against unauthorized access.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Security Model
 Protecting Objects
 Access rights
 Access rights specify who is allowed to
perform the operations on an object.
• Who is allowed to read or write its state.

 Principal
 Principal is the authority associated with
each invocation and each result.
 A principal may be a user or a process.
 The invocation comes from a user and the
result from a server.
 SYSTEM MODEL

Security Model
 The sever is responsible for
 Verifying the identity of the principal (user) behind
each invocation.
 Checking that they have sufficient access rights to
perform the requested operation on the particular
object invoked.
 Rejecting those that do not.

Access rights Object

invocation

Client
result Server

Principal (user) Network Principal (server)

 SYSTEM MODEL

Security Model
Other possible threats from an enemy
 Denial of service
 This is a form of attack in which the enemy
interferes with the activities of authorized
users by making excessive and pointless
invocations on services of message
transmissions in a network.

 It results in overloading of physical

resources (network bandwidth, server
processing capacity).
 SYSTEM MODEL

Security Model
 Mobile code
 Mobile code is security problem for any process
that receives and executes program code from
elsewhere, such as the email attachment.

 Such attachment may include a code that

accesses or modifies resources that are available
to the host process but not to the originator of the
code.