Distributed Systems

Characterization and Design

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OUTLINE

1. What is a Distributed System

2. Examples of Distributed Systems
3. Common Characteristics
4. Basic Design Issues
5. Summary

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1. DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM TYPES

Fully
Control Distributed

ta
Da
Autonomous
fully cooperative
Local data,
Autonomous local directory
transaction based Not fully replicated
master directory
Master-slave Fully replicated

Homog. Homog.
special general Processors
purpose purpose
Heterog. Heterog.
special general 3
purpose purpose
1. WHAT IS A DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM?

Definition: A distributed system is one in which

components located at networked computers
communicate and coordinate their actions only by
passing messages. This definition leads to the
following characteristics of distributed systems:

 Concurrency of components
 Lack of a global ‘clock’
 Independent failures of components
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1.1 CENTRALIZED SYSTEM
CHARACTERISTICS
 One component with non-autonomous parts
 Component shared by users all the time
 All resources accessible
 Software runs in a single process
 Single point of control
 Single point of failure

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1.2 DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS

 Multiple autonomous components

 Components are not shared by all users
 Resources may not be accessible
 Software runs in concurrent processes on different
processors
 Multiple points of control
 Multiple points of failure
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2. EXAMPLES OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

 Local Area Network and Intranet

 Database Management System
 Automatic Teller Machine Network
 Internet/World-Wide Web
 Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing

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2.1 LOCAL AREA NETWORK
email server Desktop
computers
print and other servers

Local area
Web server network

email server
print
File server
other servers

the rest of
the Internet
router/firewall
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2.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

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2.3 AUTOMATIC TELLER MACHINE
NETWORK

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2.4 INTERNET

intranet 

 ISP

backbone

satellite link

desktop computer:
server:
network link:

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2.4.1 WORLD-WIDE-WEB

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2.4.2 WEB SERVERS AND WEB
BROWSERS
http://www.google.comlsearch?q=lyu
www.google.com

Browsers
Web servers

www.uu.se Internet
http://www.uu.se/

www.w3c.org

File system of http://www.w3c.org/Protocols/Activity.html

www.w3c.org Protocols

Activity.html
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2.5 MOBILE AND UBIQUITOUS
COMPUTING

Internet

Host intranet GSM/GPRS

Wireless LAN gateway Home intranet

Mobile
phone
Printer Laptop
Camera Host site
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3. COMMON CHARACTERISTICS

 What are we trying to achieve when we construct a

distributed system?
 Certain common characteristics can be used to assess
distributed systems
 Heterogeneity
 Openness
 Security
 Scalability
 Failure Handling
 Concurrency
 Transparency

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3.1 HETEROGENEITY
 Variety and differences in
 Networks
 Computer hardware
 Operating systems
 Programming languages
 Implementations by different developers
 Middleware as software layers to provide a programming
abstraction as well as masking the heterogeneity of the
underlying networks, hardware, OS, and programming
languages (e.g., CORBA).
 Mobile Code to refer to code that can be sent from one
computer to another and run at the destination (e.g., Java
applets and Java virtual machine).
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3.2 OPENNESS
 Openness is concerned with extensions and
improvements of distributed systems.
 Detailed interfaces of components need to be

published.
 New components have to be integrated with

existing components.
 Differences in data representation of interface

types on different processors (of different

vendors) have to be resolved.

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 3.3 SECURITY
Importance of Security in Distributed Systems:
Protect sensitive data during client-server interactions.
Ensure privacy and integrity of communications.
Key Security Requirements: Common Security Challenges:
Confidentiality: Encrypt data to Data Breach Risks: Secure sensitive
prevent unauthorized access. data against unauthorized access or
Authentication: Verify the identity of leaks.
users and systems accessing resources. Mobile Code Security: Ensure safe
Integrity: Ensure data is not altered execution of code (e.g., scripts,
during transmission. applets) across different platforms.
Authorization: Control user access to Network Vulnerabilities: Guard
specific resources. against eavesdropping, man-in-the-
Non-Repudiation: Ensure actions or middle attacks, and other network
transactions cannot be denied by the threats.
parties involved.
3.4 SCALABILITY
 Adaptation of distributed systems to
 accommodate more users
 respond faster (this is the hard one)

 Usually done by adding more and/or faster

processors.
 Components should not need to be changed
when scale of a system increases.
 Design components to be scalable!

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3.5 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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3.6 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.

 Lostupdates
 Inconsistent analysis

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3.7 TRANSPARENCY
 Distributed systems should be perceived by users
and application programmers as a whole rather
than as a collection of cooperating components.
 Transparency has different aspects.
 These represent various properties that
distributed systems should have.

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4.4 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURES
 Client-Server
 Peer-to-Peer

 Services provided by multiple servers

 Proxy servers and caches

 Mobile code and mobile agents

 Network computers

 Thin clients and mobile devices

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4.4.1 CLIENTS INVOKE INDIVIDUAL
SERVERS

Client invocation invocation Server

result result
Server

Client
Key:
Process: Computer:

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4.4.2 PEER-TO-PEER SYSTEMS
Peer 2

Peer 1
Application

Application

Sharable Peer 3
objects
Application

Peer 4

Application

Peers 5 .... N
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4.4.3 A SERVICE BY MULTIPLE SERVERS
Service

Server
Client

Server

Client
Server

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4.4.4 WEB PROXY SERVER

Client Web
server
Proxy
server

Client Web
server

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4.4.5 WEB APPLETS
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

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4.4.6 THIN CLIENTS AND COMPUTE
SERVERS

Compute server
Network computer or PC

Thin network Application

Client Process

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5. SUMMARY
 Definitions of distributed systems and comparisons to
centralized systems.
 The characteristics of distributed systems.

 The eight forms of transparency.

 The basic design issues.

 Read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the textbook.

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4. BASIC DESIGN ISSUES
 General software engineering principles
include rigor and formality, separation of
concerns, modularity, abstraction,
anticipation of change, …
 Specific issues for distributed systems:
 Naming
 Communication
 Software structure
 System architecture
 Workload allocation
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 Consistency maintenance
4.1 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
 Choiceof 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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4.2 COMMUNICATION
 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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4.3 SOFTWARE STRUCTURE
 Layers in centralized computer systems:

Applications
Middleware

Operating system
Computer and Network Hardware

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4.3 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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