Distributed Systems

Unit – I
Introduction: Now a days networks of computers are used in everywhare. The Internet is one,
it provides the information of world as web or village. It means, know the information within
fracation of seconds which we require. Different networks are composed and they used the internet.
For example, Mobile phone networks, corporate networks, factory networks, campus networks, home
networks, in-car networks etc. All of these networks using ‘Distributed Systems’ technology to
communicate and coordinate their actions only by passing messages.

DS = N/W +Distributed Architecture +Distributed OS +Distributed Application.

Definition:A distributed system is one in which hardware or software components located at

networked computers communicate and coordinate their actions only by passing messages.
(or)
“A distributed system is a collection of independent computers that appear to the users of
the system as a single computer.”
This definition covers the entire range of systems in which networked computers can usefully be
deployed.

Characterization of Distributed Systems:

Computers that are connected by a network may be spatially separated by any distance. They may be
on separate continents in the same building or in the same room. Our definition of distributed
Systems have the following Characteristics of Distributed Systems or Significant Consequences:
1.Concurrency: In a network of computers, concurrent program execution is common. It means, “ I
can do my work on my computer while you can do your work on your computer”, sharing resources of
both work (such as web pages on files) when necessary. The capacity of sharing can be increased by
adding more resources (for example computers) to the network.
2. No global clock: Programs coordinate actions by exchanging messages in distributed systems. Close
coordination often depends on a shared idea of the time at which the programs’ actions occur. But
there are limits to the accuracy with which the computers in a network can synchronize their clocks.
In this case, “there is no single global notion of the correct time”. This is a direct consequence of
the fact that the only communication is by sending messages through network.
3. Independent failures: Every system can fial based on the responsibility of system designers. But
Distributed systems can fail in new ways. Faults in the network result in the isolation of the
computers that are connected it, but they doesn’t mean stop running. In fact, the programs on them
may not be able to detect whether the network has failed or has become unusually slow. Similarly,
the failure of a computer, or unexpected termination of a program by a crash is not effect to other
computer in distributed networks.
when some systems fail, others may not know and other system will provide the service goal of the
distributed system is sharing the resource.
Examples of Distributed Systems: Examples of distributed systems which are familiar
and widely used networks. The Internet, Intranet, Mobile Computing and Mobile and ubiquiting
computing.
1. Internet: It is a very large distributed system that allows users throughout the world to make
use of its services. For example, World Wide Web, web search, online gaming, email, social
networks, ecommerce, etc.
– WWW, email, FTP, VOD, etc
• Internet protocols is a major technical achievement.
- TCP/IP: connect different type computer networks.

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2

The figure illustrates a typical portion of the Internet. Programms running on the computers
connected to it interact by passing messages in communication. The design and construction of the
Internet communication mechanism (the Internet protocols) is a major technical achievement,
enabling a program running anywhere to address messages to programs anywhere else.
Internet is also a very large distributed system. It enables users, wherever they are, to make
use of services such as the World Wide Web, email and file transfer.
The figure shows a collection of intranets that subnetworks operated by compaines and other
organizations.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are companies that provide modem links and other types of
connection to individual users and small organizations, enabling them to access services anywhere in
the Intranets are linked together by backbones.
A backbone is a network link with a high transmission capacity, employing satellite connections,
fiber optic cables and other high-bandwidth circuits.

2. Intranets: An intranet is a portion of the internet that is separately administered and has a
boundary that can be configured to enforce local security policies.
The figure shows a typical intranet. It is composed of several local area networks (LANs)
linked by backbone connections. The network configuration of a particular intranet is the
responsibility of the organization that administers it and may vary widely.

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3 email s erv er Desktop
computers
print and other s erv ers

Loc al area
Web server netw ork

email s erv er
print
File s erv er
other s erv ers
the res t of
the Internet
router/f irew all

An intranet is connected to the Internet via a router, which allows the users inside the
intranet to make use of services elswhere such as the Web or email. It also allows the users in
other intranets to access the services it provides. Many organizations need to protect their own
serives from unauthoriezed use by possibly malicious users elsewhere.
For example, a company will not want secure information to be accessible to users in competing
organizations, and a hospital will not want sensitive patient data to be revealed. Companies also want
to protect themselves from harmful programs such as viruses entering and attacking the computers
in the intranet and possibly destroying valuable data.
The role of a firewall is to protect an intranet by preventing unauthorized messages leaving or
entering. A firewall is implemented by filtering incoming and outgoing messages, for example
according to their source or destination. A firewall might for example allow only those messages
releated to email and web access to pass into or out of the intranet that it protects.
The main issues arising in the design of components for use in intranets are:
 File services are needed to enable users to share data.
 Firewalls tend to impede legitimate access to services
 The cost of software installation and support is an important issue.

3. Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing: Due to the technological advances in device

efficiency and wireless networking have been increased to the integration of small and
portable computing into distributed systems.
These devices include:
 Laptop computers.
 Handheld devices, including mobile phones, smart phones, GPS-enabled devices, pages, personal
digital assistants (PDAs), video cameras and digital cameras.
 Wearable devices, such as smart watches with functionality similar to a PDA.
 Devices embedded in appliances such as washing machines, hi-fi systems, cars and
refrigerators.
Mobile computing: Mobile computing is the performance of computing tasks while the user is on the
move, or visiting places other than their usual environment. In mobile computing, users who are away
from their ‘home’ intranet are still provided with access to resources via the devices they carry with
them. The mobile computing increasing the service for users to utilize resources such as printers or
even sales points that are conveniently nearby as they move around. This mobility service is also
known as location-aware or context-aware computing.
Thus, Mobility introduces a number of challenges for distributed systems including to maintain
operation in the face of device mobility.

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Ubiquitous
4 computing is small, cheap computational device that present in users’ physical
environments, including the home, office and even natural settings. The term ‘ubiquitous’ is intended
to suggest that small computing devices will eventually become so pervasive (persistent) in everyday
objects that they are hardly noticed. It means, its computational behaviour will be transparently and
tied up with their physical function.
The presence of computers everywhere only becomes useful when they can communicate with
one another. For example, it may be convenient for users to control their washing machine or their
entertainment system from their phone or a ‘universal remove control’ device in the home. Equally,
the washing machine could notify the user via a smart badge or phone when the washing is done.
The following figure shows a user who is visiting a host organization. The figure shows the user’s
home intranet and host intranet at the site that the user is visiting. Both intranets are connected to
the rest of the Internet.
The user has access to three forms of wireless connection. Their laptop has a means of
connecting to the host’s wireless LAN. This network provides coverage of a few hundred metres( a
floor of a building). It connects to the rest of the host intranet via a gateway or access point. The
user also has a mobile telphone, which is connected to the internet. The phone gives access to the
web and other internet services. Finally, the user carries a digital camera, which can communicate
over a personal area wireless network with a device such as a printer.

Internet

Host intranet WAP

Wireless LAN Home intranet
gatew ay

Mobile
phone
Printer Laptop
Camera Host site

Focus on resource sharing and web

We routinely share hardware resources such as printers, data resources such as files, and resources
with more specific functionality such as search engines.
 Resources in a distributed system are physically encapsulated within computers and can only
be accessed by communication.
 For effective sharing, each resource must be managed by a program that offers a
communication interface enabling the resource to be accessed and updated reliably and
consistently.

Service: A service is a distinct part of a computer system that manages a collection of related
resources and presents their functionality to users and applications.
For example,
 We access shared files through a file service;
 We send documents to printers through a printing service;
 We buy goods through an electronic payment service.
The only access we have to the service is via the set of operations that it exports.
For example, a file service provides read, write and delete operations on files.

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Server
5 and Client: The term server is refers to a running program (a process) on a networked
computer that accepts requests from programs running on other computers to perform a service and
responds appropriately.
The requesting processes are referred to as clients, and the overall approach is known as
client-server computing.
In this approach, requests are sent in messages from clients to a server and replies are sent
in messages from the server to the clients. When the client sends a request for an operation to be
carried out, we say that the client invokes an operation upon the server.
A complete interaction between a client and a server, from the point when the client sends its
request to when it receives the server’s response, is called a remote invocation.
The same process may be both a client and a server, since servers sometimes invoke
operations on other servers.
The terms ‘client’ and ‘server’ apply only to the roles played in a single request. In this case,
Clients are active (making requests) and servers are passive (only waking up when they receive
requests);
Servers run continuously, whereas clients last only as long as the applications of which they
form a part.
World Wide Web The World Wide Web [www.w3.org I, Berners-Lee 1991] is an evolving system for
publishing and accessing resources and services across the Internet. Through web browsers, users
retrieve and view documents of many types, listen to audio streams and view video streams, and
interact with an unlimited set of services.
The Web began life at the European centre for nuclear research (CERN), Switzerland, in 1989
as a vehicle for exchanging documents between a community of physicists connected by the Internet
[Berners-Lee 1999]. The feature of the Web is a hypertext structure among the documents that it
stores, reflecting the users’ requirement to organize their knowledge. This means that documents
contain links (or hyperlinks) – references to other documents and resources that are also stored in
the Web.
• Definition: Web is an open system that it can be extended and implemented in new ways
without disturbing its existing functionality.

– Its operation is based on communication standards and document standards

– Respect to the types of ‘resource’ that can be published and shared on it.

The Web has moved beyond these simple data resources to encompass services, such as electronic
purchasing of goods. It has evolved without changing its basic architecture. The Web is based on
three main standard technological components:
 The HyperText Markup Language (HTML), a language for specifying the contents and layout
of pages as they are displayed by web browsers;
 Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), also known as Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), which
identify documents and other resources stored as part of the Web;

 A client-server system architecture, with standard rules for interaction (the HyperText
Transfer Protocol – HTTP) by which browsers and other clients fetch documents and other
resources from web servers. Figure shows some web servers, and browsers making requests to
them. It is an important feature that users may locate and manage their own web servers
anywhere on the Internet

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6 Web servers and web browsers:

HTML : The HyperText Markup Language [www.w3.org II] is used to specify the text and images
that make up the contents of a web page, and to specify how they are laid out and formatted for
presentation to the user. A web page contains such structured items as headings, paragraphs, tables
and images. HTML is also used to specify links and which resources are associated with them.
Users may produce HTML by hand, using a standard text editor, but they more commonly use an
HTML-aware ‘wysiwyg’ editor that generates HTML from a layout that they create graphically. A
typical piece of HTML text follows:
<IMG SRC = “http://www.cdk5.net/WebExample/Images/earth.jpg”> 1
<P> 2
Welcome to Earth! Visitors may also be interested in taking a look at the 3
<A HREF = “http://www.cdk5.net/WebExample/moon.html”>Moon</A>. 4
</P> 5

• This HTML text is stored in a file that a web server can access.
• A browser retrieves the contents of this file from a web server.
-The browser interprets the HTML text
-The server can infer the content type from the filename extension.

URLs : The purpose of a Uniform Resource Locator [www.w3.org III] is to identify a resource. It
means, the term used in web architecture documents is Uniform Resource Identifier (URI),

The ‘scheme’, declares which type of URL this is. URLs are required to identify a variety of
resources. For example, mailto:[email protected] identifies a user’s email address;
ftp://ftp.downloadIt.com/software/aProg.exe identifies a file that is to be retrieved using the File
Transfer Protocol (FTP) rather than the more commonly used protocol HTTP.
Other examples of schemes are ‘tel’ (used to specify a telephone number to dial, which is
particularly useful when browsing on a mobile phone) and ‘tag’ (used to identify an arbitrary entity).
HTTP URLs are the most widely used, for accessing resources using the standard HTTP protocol. An
HTTP URL has two main jobs: to identify which web server maintains the resource, and to identify
which of the resources at that server is required.

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The
7 above figure (web servers and web browser) shows three browsers issuing requests for
resources managed by three web servers.
-The topmost browser is issuing a query to a search engine.
-The middle browser requires the default page of another web site.
-The bottommost browser requires a web page that is specified in full, including a path
name relative to the server.

In general, HTTP URLs are of the following form:

http:// servername [:port] [/pathName] [?query] [ #fragment]
where items in square brackets are optional. A full HTTP URL always begins with the string ‘http://’
followed by a server name, expressed as a Domain Name System (DNS) name
Consider the URLs:
http://www.cdk5.net􀀃
http://www.w3.org/standards/faq.html#conformance􀀃
http://www.google.com/search?q=obama
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Server DNS name Pathname on server Arguments
www.cdk3.net (default) (none)
www.w3c.org Protocols/Activity.html (none)
e.pku.cn cgi-bin/allsearch word=distributed+system
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note that the HTML directives, known as tags, are enclosed by angle brackets, such as <P>. Line 1 of
the example identifies a file containing an image for presentation. Its URL is
http://www.cdk5.net/WebExample/Images/earth.jpg. Lines 2 and 5 are directives to begin and end a
paragraph, respectively. Lines 3 and 4 contain text to be displayed on the web page in the standard
paragraph format.

HTTP:The HyperText Transfer Protocol [www.w3.org IV] defines the ways in which browsers and
other types of client interact with web servers.
• Main features
– Request-replay interaction : HTTP is a ‘request-reply’ protocol. The client sends a
request message to the server containing the URL of the required resource. The server
looks up the path name and, if it exists, sends back the resource’s content in a reply
message to the client. Otherwise, it sends back an error response such as the familiar
‘404 Not Found’.
– Content types : The strings that denote the type of content are called MIME
(RFC2045,2046)
– One resource per request: Clients specify one resource per HTTP request. If a web
page contains nine images, say, then the browser will issue a total of ten separate
requests to obtain the entire contents of the page.
– Simple access control: Any user with network connectivity to a web server can access
any of its published resources. for example, by typing in a password.
• Dynamic content
– Common Gateway Interface: a program that web servers run to generate content for
their clients
• Downloaded code : Sometimes the designers of web services require some service-related
code to run inside the browser, at the user’s computer. In this particular way, need run one of
the following code.
– JavaScript
– Applet

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Challenges
8

The main challenges are

1. Heterogeneity: The Internet enables users to access services and run applications over a
heterogeneous collection of computers and networks. Heterogeneity applies to all of the
following:
• Networks;
• Computer hardware;
• Operating systems;
• Programming languages;
• Implementations by different developers.
Networks: The Internet consists of many different networks and their differences are masked by
the internet protocols to communicate with one another. For example, a computer attached to an
Ethernet and the entire Internet protocols are implementation is over the Ethernet.
Computer hardware: Data types such as integers may be represented in different ways on different
hardware. For example, there are two alternatives for the byte ordering of integers. These
differences in representation must be done when messages are to be exchanged between programs
running on different hardware.
Operating Systems: The Operating Systems of all computers on the Internet need to include an
implementation of the Internet protocols and with different Application Programs on each. For
example, the calls for exchanging messages in UNIX are different from the calls in Windows.
Programming Languages: Different programming languages use different representations for
characters and data structures such as arrays and records. These differences must be addressed if
programs written in different languages are to be able to communicate with one another.
Implementations by different developers: Programs written by different developers cannot
communicate with one another unless they use common standards, for example, for network
communication and the representation of primitive data items and data structures in messages. For
this, standards need to be agreed and adopted.
Middleware: The term middleware applies to a software layer that provides a programming
abstraction as well as masking the heterogeneity of the underlying networks, hardware, operating
systems and programming languages. The Common Object Request Broker (CORBA) is an example.
Some middleware such as Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) supports only a single programming
language.
Middleware provides a uniform computational model for use by the programmers of servers
and distributed applications.
Heterogeneity and mobile code: The term mobile code is used to refer to program code that can be
transferred from one computer to another and run at the destination. Java applets are an example.
The virtual machine approach provides a way of making code executable on a variety of host
computers. The compiler for a particular language generates code for a virtual machine instead of a
particular hardware order code.
For example, the java compiler produces code for a java virtual machine, which executes it by
interpretation. The java virtual machine needs to be implemented once for each type of computer to
enable java programs to run.
Today, the most commonly used form of mobile code is JavaScript programs in some web
pages loaded into client browsers.
2. Openness: The openness of a computer system is the characteristic that determines
whether the system can be extended and re-implemented in various ways.
The openness of distributed systems is determined primarily by the degree to which new
resource-sharing services can be added and be made available for use by a variety of client programs.

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9 In a word, the key interfaces are published. This process is akin to the standardization of
interfaces, but it often bypasses official standardization procedures, which are usually cumbersome
and slow-moving.
However, the publication of interfaces is only the starting point for adding and extending services in
a distributed system. The challenge to designers is to tackle the complexity of distributed systems
consisting of many components engineered by different people.
A benefit that is often cited for open systems is their independence from individual vendors.
To summarize:
 Open systems are characterized by the fact that their key interfaces are published.
 Open distributed systems are based on the provision of a uniform communication mechanism
and published interfaces for access to shared resources.
 Open distributed systems can be constructed from heterogeneous hardware and software,
possibly from different vendors. But the conformance of each component to the published
standard must be carefully tested and verified if the system is to work correctly.
3. Security: Many of the information resources are maintained in distributed systems have a
high intrinsic value to their users. Their security is therefore of considerable importance.
Security for information resources has three components:
 Confidentiality (protection against disclosure to unauthorized individuals) Eg: ACL in UNIX
File system,
 Integrity (protection against alteration or corruption) Eg: checksum, and
 Availability (protection against interference with the means to access the resources) Eg:
Denial of service.
In a distributed system, clients send requests to access data managed by servers, which
involves sending information in messages over a network.
For example:
1. A doctor might request access to hospital patient data or send additions to that data.
2. In electronic commerce and banking, users send their credit card numbers across the Internet.

In both examples, the challenge is to send sensitive information in a message over a network in a
secure manner. But security is not just a matter of concealing the contents of messages – it also
involves knowing for sure the identity of the user or other agent on whose behalf a message was sent.
In the first example, the server needs to know that the user is really a doctor, and in the
second example, the user needs to be sure of the identity of the shop or bank with which they are
dealing.
The second challenge here is to identify a remote user or other agent correctly. Both of these
challenges can be met by the use of encryption techniques developed for this purpose.
4. Scalability: A system is described as scalable if it will remain effective when there is a
significant increase in the number of resources and the number of users. The number of
computers and servers in the Internet has increased dramatically.
Figure shows the increasing number of computers and web servers during the 12-year history of the
Web up to 2005 [zakon.org]. It is interesting to note the significant growth in both computers and
web servers in this period, but also that the relative percentage is flattening out.

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10

The design of scalable distributed systems presents the following challenges:

1. Controlling the cost of physical resources: As the demand for a resource grows, it should be
possible to extend the system, at reasonable cost, to meet it. For example, the frequency
with which files are accessed in an intranet is likely to grow as the number of users and
computers increases.
For example, if a single file server can support 20 users, then two such servers should be able
to support 40 users.
2. Controlling the performance loss: Consider the management of a set of data whose size is
proportional to the number of users or resources in the system.
For example, the table with the correspondence between the domain names of computers and
their Internet addresses held by the Domain Name System (DNS), which is used mainly to
look up DNS names such as www.amazon.com.
3. Preventing software resources running out: An example of lack of scalability is shown by the
numbers used as Internet (IP) addresses (computer addresses in the Internet). In the late
1970s, it was decided to use 32 bits for this purpose, the supply of available Internet
addresses is running out. For this reason, a new version of the protocol with 128-bit Internet
addresses is being adopted, and this will require modifications to many software components.
4. Avoiding performance bottlenecks: In general, algorithms should be decentralized to avoid
having performance bottlenecks. The Domain Name System removed this bottleneck by
partitioning the name table between servers located throughout the Internet and
administered locally.
5. Failure Handling Computer systems sometimes fail. When faults occur in hardware or
software, programs may produce incorrect results or may stop before they have completed the
proposed computation.
Failures in a distributed system are partial – that is, some components fail while others continue to
function. Therefore the handling of failures is particularly difficult.
The following techniques for dealing with failures:
Detecting failures: Some failures can be detected. For example, checksums can be used to detect
corrupted data in a message or a file. That is, difficult or even impossible to detect some other
failures, such as a remote crashed server in the Internet.
The challenge is to manage in the presence of failures that cannot be detected but may be suspected.
Masking failures: Some failures that have been detected can be hidden or made less severe. Two
examples of hiding failures:
1. Messages can be retransmitted when they fail to arrive.
2. File data can be written to a pair of disks so that if one is corrupted, the other may still be
correct.
Tolerating failures: Most of the services in the Internet do exhibit failures.
For example, when a web browser cannot contact a web server, it does not make the user wait
forever while it keeps on trying.

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Recovery
11 from failures: Recovery involves the design of software so that the state of permanent
data can be recovered or ‘rolled back’ after a server has crashed.
Redundancy: Services can be made to tolerate failures by the use of redundant components. Consider
the following examples:
1. There should always be at least two different routes between any two routers in the Internet.
2. In the Domain Name System, every name table is replicated in at least two different servers.
3. A database may be replicated in several servers to ensure that the data remains accessible after
the failure of any single server;
 the servers can be designed to detect faults in their peers;
 when a fault is detected in one server, clients are redirected to the remaining servers.
6. Concurrency: Both services and applications provide resources that can be shared by clients
in a distributed system. Therefore several clients will attempt to access a shared resource at the
same time. For example, a data structure that records bids for an auction may be accessed very
frequently when it gets close to the deadline time.
• Correctness
– ensure the operations on shared resource correct in a concurrent environment
e.g. records bids for an auction.
• Performance
– Ensure the high performance of concurrent operations.
7. Transparency: Transparency is defined as the concealment from the user and the
application programmer of the separation of components in a distributed system, so that the system
is perceived as a whole rather than as a collection of independent components. The implications of
transparency are a major influence on the design of the system software.
Access transparency enables local and remote resources to be accessed using identical operations.
Location transparency enables resources to be accessed without knowledge of their physical or
network location (for example, which building or IP address).
Concurrency transparency enables several processes to operate concurrently using shared resources
without interference between them.
Replication transparency enables multiple instances of resources to be used to increase reliability
and performance without knowledge of the replicas by users or application programmers.
Failure transparency enables the concealment of faults, allowing users and application programs to
complete their tasks despite the failure of hardware or software components.
Mobility transparency allows the movement of resources and clients within a system without
affecting the operation of users or programs.
Performance transparency allows the system to be reconfigured to improve performance as loads
vary.
Scaling transparency allows the system and applications to expand in scale without change to the
system structure or the application algorithms.
SYSTEM MODELS
Introduction: Systems which are used in real-world environments should be designed to function
correctly in the widest possible.
1. Architecture model
2. fundamental model
Deficulties for and threads to distributed System:
1. Widely varying modes of use: The components (or) parts of systems are wide variations in
workload – for example, some web pages are accessed several million times a day. In this case,
some parts of a system may be disconnected, or poorly connected some of the time.
For example, multimedia applications have special requirements for high communication bandwidth and
low latency.

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12 2. Wide range of system environments: A distributed system must accommodate
heterogeneous hardware, operating systems and networks.
 The networks may differ widely in performance i.e., wireless networks operate at a fraction of
the speed of local networks.
 In distributed systems, differing scales of system must be supported i.e., ranging from tens
of computers to millions of computers.
3. Internal problems: Non-synchronized clocks, conflicting data updates and many modes of
hardware and software failure involving the individual system components.
4. External threats: Attacks on data integrity and secrecy, denial of service attacks.

To overcome the above problems in distributed system, the properties and design issues can
change with the use of descriptive system models. Each type of model is planned to provide an
abstract, simplified but consistent description of a relevant aspect of distributed system design:
Architectural models describe a system in terms of the computational and communication tasks
performed by its computational elements. It means, the computational elements being individual
computers or aggregates of them supported by appropriate network interconnections.
Fundamental models are concerned with properties that are common in all of the architectural
models. It is addressed by three fundamental models that examine the important aspects of
distributed systems:
 interaction models, which consider the structure and sequencing of the communication
between the elements of the system;
 Failure models, which consider the ways in which a system may fail to operate correctly.
 Security models, which consider how the system is protected against attempts to interfere
with its correct operation or to steal its data.
Architectural models: The architectural of a system has a collection of individually
defined components. The complete objective is to make sure that the structure will satisfy the
current and future demands on it. The vital responsibilities are to make the system cost effective,
manageable, reliable and adaptable. The architectural design of a building has same features like
determining architectural style gives a constant frame of reference for the design.
The central architectural models are constructed almost on the notion of process and object.
The functioning of separate components of a distributed system is first simplified and then
abstracted in an architectural model. This model later evaluates the following things.
a) The arrangement of components throughout a network of computers i.e., trying to specify
beneficial patterns for the distribution of data and workload.
b) The interrelationships b/w the components i.e., the components functional roles and the
pattern of communication.
By altering client server model, one can construct few dynamic systems.
a) A process can assign a task to another, since it is possible to the code from one process to
another.
Example: The code from servers is downloaded by the client processes and executed locally.
To minimize access delays and communication traffic, the code and objects that accesses the
process can be transferred.
b) Few of the distributed systems are designed to allow the computers and other mobile devices
to be added or removed smoothly, enabling to find obtainable services and also to provide
their services to others.
There are many patterns that are used fully for the allocation of work in a distributed system.
These patterns have a major effect on the performance of the resulting system.
An architectural model of a distributed system is concerned with the placement of its parts and the
relationships b/w them.
Example: Client-server, Peer-to-peer

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 1. Software Layers:
13
The software architecture refers to services offered and requested
b/w processes located in the same or different computers.
The structuring of software as modules or layers in a single computer and the services
extended and appealed b/w processes situated in the same or different computers is actually
referred to as software architecture. The disclosed form of this process and service is a layer of
services in distributed systems. This layer of service included both software and hardware services.
The process which accepts request from other processes is a server. One or more servers can supply
a distributed service. To support a constant system-wide view of the service resources, these
servers can communicate with one another and also with client processes.
The above figure introduced two important terms platform and middleware.
1. Platform: The bottom layers (i.e., operating system, computer and network hardware layers)
provide a platform for distributed applications. The services provided by these bottom layers
are utilized by higher layers. In every computer, operating system layer and computer
network layer are implemented separately. This implementation facilitates communication and
coordination b/w processes by transferring the system’s programming interface to that level.

2. Middleware: A piece of software placed b/w the application and operating system is called
“middleware”. Its intension is to enclose heterogeneity and to supply an accessible
programming model to application programmers. The concept of middleware can be easily
explained in the context of objects or processes in a set of computers that interact with each
other to carryout communication and resource-sharing support for distributed application.
Middleware supplies helpful building blocks in the construction of software components.
These components can interact in distributed applications.

It provides useful building blocks. They are Remote method invocation, communication
b/w a group of processes, notification of events, partitioning, placement and retrieval of data
or objects, replication, transmission of multimedia data in real time.
The earliest examples of middleware is remote procedure calling packages (eg: sun RPC) and
group communication system [ eg: Isis]. Object-oriented middleware products and standards
are
a) CORBA b) java RMI c)Microsoft Distributed Component objects model (DCOM)
d) Web services e) The ISO/ITU-T’s Reference model for open distributed processing
(RM-ODP).
2. System Architecture: The architecture model has two types of environments in
distributed systems. They are
1. Client-server model and 2. Multiple server model.

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14 Client-server model: It is very frequently referred in distributed systems. This architecture
is broadly utilized and significantly very important. The figure below shows the structure of client’s
server model. The figure shows the structure of client-server model.

In order to access the shared resources managed by server processes in different host computers,
the client processes interact with those server processes. The figure above specifies that the
clients of some servers may also be consisting the web pages has a common client called web server.
The DNS service has many clients such as web servers and many other internet services. The service
provided by DNS is that it interprets Internet domain names to network address. Search engines
are another example related to web. It allows users to search the sites all over the Internet for
synopsis of information accessible on web pages. These synopses are created by programs called web
crawlers.
At search engine site, these web crawlers are executed in the background, using HTTP
requests to access web servers all over the Internet. A search engine can play the role of both a
server and a client. It performs the following two tasks,
a) It replies to queries from browser clients.
b) Executing web crawlers that act as clients of other web servers.
Multiple server’s model: In multiple server model, several servers implement the services as its
processes in separate host computers. After implementation these computers interact with each
other if required in order to provide the service either by partitioning the services into set of
objects and distributing them among themselves or by maintaining replicate copies of these services
on several hosts. The server may also provide the service either by partitioning the services into set
of objects and distributing them among themselves by maintain replicate copies of these services on
several hosts. The multiple server model is shown in fig.

The concept of this model is illustrated in the following examples.

1. On the web each server maintains their own resources, called partitioned data. Therefore, a
user can access a resource of any one server.
2. Replication is an important concept of increasing availability and performance and for
improving fault tolerance. The processes that run on different computers can have multiple

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15 consistent copies of data due to replication. For an instance, data available at mittal elec.com
might also be provided by some other web services. It is due to mapping of service onto
several servers mainlining database replicated in memory.
3. Another example of replication based service is the Sun NIS (Network Information Service).
Each server of NIS maintains duplicate copies of password file that holds a list of user’s login
names along with encrypted passwords.

3.Proxy servers and caches: A cache is repository. A cache has storage facility of recently
used objects that is closer to the objects themselves. A web proxy server provides a shared cache
of web resources for the client machines at a site or across several sites.
 Increase availability
 Increase performance
 Reduce the load on the wide-area network and web server.

When a client process requests an object, the caching service starts examining the cache for
updated copy. If the updated copy is available, then caching service provides the object from the
repository. Otherwise, it retrieves an updates copy. In general caches are situated in a proxy
server that is shared by multiple clients or available with each client.
The objective of a proxy server is to extend the performance and availability of the service by
decreasing the load on wide-area network and web servers. Apart from this, they are used to get
remote web servers through a firewall. For a client machine at a site or over multiple sites, a shared
cache is supplied by web proxy server.

4.A Distributed application on Peer process: In peer processes architecture, all

processes play similar roles and interact cooperatively with each other as peers, performing
distributed activity or computation without making any differentiation among clients and servers.
The code in peer processes is responsible of maintaining consistency for application level
resources and synchronizing application level actions based on the requirements. The peer processes
architecture is shown in figure.

Applic ation Applic ation

Coordinat ion Coordinat ion

c ode c ode

Applic ation

Coordinat ion
c ode

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16 example, assume an application of a distributed ‘white board’ that allows users to view and modify
For
a picture shared b/w several computers. This can be made possible by implementing as an application
process at each site relying on middleware layers. So that event notification and group
communication can be performed in order to notify the changes to the picture for all application
processes.

5. Client-server Model Variations for Mobile Code:

Several variations on the client server model can be derived from the consideration of the
following factors:
 The use of mobile code and mobile agents
 Users need for low cost computer with limited H/W resources that are simple to manage.
 The requirement to add and remove mobile device in convenient manner.
• Example: Java applets
– The user running a browser selects a link to an applets whose code is stored on a web
server.
– The code is downloaded to the browser and runs there.
• Advantage:
– Good interactive response since.
– Does not suffer from the delays or variability of bandwidth associated with network
communication.
• Disadvantage:
– Security threat to the local resources in the destination computer.

Mobile Agents: A mobile agent is a running program that travels from one system to another in a
network. A network performs a task such as gathering information, providing results on behalf of
someone. A mobile agent may make many invocations to local resources at each site it visits. Eg:
access to individual database entries.
Mobile agents are possibly used in cases such as
a) Install software on the computers of an organization.
b) To compare the prices of products different vendors by visiting the site of every vendor and
carryout a sequence of database operations.
A recent example is worm program developed at Xerox PARC. It is designed in such a way to
transfer detailed computations by using of idle computers.

Thin Clients: A window-based user interface on a computer local to the user while running
applications on a remote computer is supported by a software layer referred to as thin client.
A computer server has the capacity to run applications simultaneously. It is a powerful
computer that runs a multiprocessor version of an operating system (UNIX or windows NT).
The highly interactive graphical activities such as CAD and image processing are the limitation
of the tin client architecture. Since, the transfer of image and vector information b/w the thin

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client
17 and application process include both network and operating system potentials, the delay
experience by users is increased.
Implementation: The implementation of thin client systems is uncomplicated. For examole, X-11
window system, a variant of UNIX. Other implementation includes The citrix Win Frame Product and
the Tele-porting and Virtual Network Computer (VNC) systems.

Network Computers: The desktop computer local to a user is used to run the applications. For
these computers, the operating system and application software generally needs data to be placed on
a local disk and more active code. A more technical effort is needed to manage application files and
to maintain local software but most of the users are not eligible to provide this effort.
With the help of network computer, the user downloads application software and its operating
system from remote file server. It takes response to the above problem. Although the files are
administered by a remote file server, applications such as web browser also run locally. It is possible
for a user to move from one network computer to other, because a file server stores all the data and
code of an application.
Mobile devices: Mobile devices are the hardware computing components that carry software and
are freely movable b/w physical locations and networks. Some examples of mobile devices include the
following: laptops, handheld devices, mobile phones, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), digital
cameras, and some wearable computers like smart watches.
Mostly mobile devices are supported by wireless networking. They can be oerated on greater
ranges of networks such as GSM and 3G telecommunication networks. Some of them can operate
over network upto hundreds of meters like Wifi (IEEE802.11) or upto ten meters like Bluetooth. On
mobile devices there is a possibility of existing for both, client and server. The existences of clients
are common, but in some cases it might be possible for a mobile device to have server as well.
6.Mobile devices and Spontaneous networking : Key Features of Spontaneous Networking are
easy connection to a local network and Easy integration with local services
• Security problems from connectivity of mobile users:
 Limited connectivity
 Security and privacy
• The purpose of a discovery service is to accept and store details of services that are available
on the network and to respond to queries from clients.
• A discovery service offers two interfaces:
 A registration service accepts registration requests from servers and records the
details in the discovery service’s database.
 A lookup service accepts queries concerning available services and searches its
database for registered services that match the queries.

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18

Interface and Objects:

• Interface definitions specify the set of functions available for invocation in a server (or peer)
processes.
• In OO paradigm, distributed processes can be constructed as objects whose methods can be
accessed by remote invocation (COBRA approach).
• Many objects can be encapsulated in server or peer processes.
• Number, types, and locations (in some implementation) of objects may change dynamically as
system activates require.
• Therefore, new services can be instantiated and immediately be made available for invocation.

Design Requirements for Distributed Architectures:

1. Performance Issues:
– Considered under the following factors:
• Responsiveness:
– Fast and consistent response time is important for the users of
interactive applications.
– Response speed is determined by the load and performance of the server
and the network and the delay in all the involved software components.
– If the process is in the same computer then also data transfer rate b/w
processes and associated control switching is low. This can be overcome
if the system must be composed of relatively few software layers and
small quantities of transferred data to achieve good response times.
– In case of remote text pages, good response time can be achieved due to
their small size.
– In case of graphical images that contain large volume of data, interactive
response time is very slow.
• Throughput:
– It can be defined as the rate of completing the computational task. It is
the traditional performance measure for computer systems.
– It determines the ability of performing the work for all users in a
distributed system.
– Data present on remote server if needed to be passed from a server
process to a client process, then it has to pass through all software
layers present in both computers.

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19 • Load balancing:
– Enable applications and service processes to proceed concurrently
without competing for the same resources.
– Exploit available processing resources.
2. Quality of Service provided in distributed systems:
– The main system properties that affect the service quality are:
• Reliability: related to failure fundamental model (discussed later).
• Performance: ability to meet timeliness guarantees.
• Security: related to security fundamental model (discussed later).
• Adaptability: ability to meet changing resource availability and system
configurations.
3. Dependability issues:
– The dependability issues can be defined as correctness, security and fault tolerance.
– Dependability is the crucial requirement in most application domains.
– The issues achieved by:
• Fault tolerance: The ability to continue its function in the presence of failures
that may arise in software, hardware and networks. Reliability of an application
can be obtained by means of redundancy.
• Security: locate sensitive data only in secure computers. For example, consider
the database of a bank containing customer records with sensitive and widely
used items. The sensitive issues must be visible to only some specific bank
authorities.
• Correctness of distributed concurrent programs: research topic.

Fundamental Models: A model contains only the essential ingredients needed to

understand and reason about some aspects of a system’s behavior.
System Model: System model is a model used to create accurate assumptions regarding the
systems that are to be modeled. It is used to create generalizations about the systems that are to
be modeled based on the assumptions made. Here, generalizations are considered as efficient
general purpose algorithm or the properties which are required and guaranteed.
The factors that are to be considered for the construction of fundamentals models:
a) Security: The distributed systems have large attacks because of their openness and modular
nature. The security in fundamental model defines attack front forms with the threat
analysis and system design that are resistant to threats.
b) Interaction: Interaction is the communication and coordination b/w the processes with the
exchange of messages. The interaction model in distributed systems must reflect the
following facts:
i) Communication involves delay of specific duration.
ii) The delays limit the accuracy of process coordination.
iii) Difficult to maintain same time conventions across the computers.
c) Failure: The operation of a distributed system is large to failure with the occurrence of fault
in the network or in the computer which is connected to it. Fundamental model describes the
faults and analyses their effects. It also designs fault tolerable systems capable of running
even in the presence of faults.

1.Interaction Model: Interacting processes are responsible for the execution of activities in the
distributed systems. Each process has a state that cannot be accessed or updated by another
process. A state consists of variables and a set of data that can be updated and accessed by its
state.
Interacting processes in a distributed system are affected by two significant factors:
a) Performance of communication channels: is characterized by:

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20 Latency: It is the delay that occurs when the message is transmitted from one process to another.
i)
The delay includes the time in between sending and receipt of a message including
1. Network access time.
1. Time for first bit transmitted through a network to reach its destination.
2. Processing time within the sending and receiving processes.
ii. Throughput/ latency : number of units (e.g., packets) delivered per time unit.
– It can be defined as the rate of completing the computational task. It is
the traditional performance measure for computer systems.
– It determines the ability of performing the work for all users in a
distributed system.
– Data present on remote server if needed to be passed from a server
process to a client process, then it has to pass through all software
layers present in both computers.
iii. Bandwidth: It is the amount of data that can be transmitted over a network in a given time
period. If same network is being used by many communication channels, then they have to
share the bandwidth.

iv. Jitter: It is the difference in time during the transmission of a message. This difference in
time can be seen when a series of audio data samples with variant time intervals are played
resulting into distortion in time.
b) Computer clocks:
• Each computer in a distributed system has its own internal clock to supply the
value of the current time to local processes.
• Therefore, two processes running on different computers read their clocks at
the same time may take different time values.
• Clock drift rate refers to the relative amount a computer clock differs from a
perfect reference clock.
• Several approaches to correcting the times on computer clocks are proposed.
• Clock corrections can be made by sending messages; from a computer has an
accurate time to other computers, which will still be affected by network
delays.
Types of Interaction model: Setting time limits for process execution, as message delivery, in a
distributed system is hard.
Two opposing extreme positions provide a pair of simple interaction models:
Synchronous distributed systems:
• A system in which the following bounds are defined:
1. Time to execute each step of a process has known lower and upper
bounds.
2. Each message transmitted over a channel is received within a known
bounded time.
3. Each process has a local clock whose drift rate from perfect time has a
known bound.
• Easier to handle, but determining realistic bounds can be hard or impossible.
Asynchronous distributed systems:
 A system in which there are no bounds on:
1. Process execution times.
2. Message delivery times.
3. Clock drift rate.
 Allows no assumptions about the time intervals involved in any execution.
 Exactly models the Internet.
- Browsers are designed to allow users to do other things while they are waiting.

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21  More abstract and general:
- A distributed algorithm executing on one system is likely to also work on another one.
Event ordering: if an event at one process (sending or receiving a message) occurred before, after,
or concurrently with another event at another process, then DS algorithms keep them in order.
• Why because it is impossible for any process in a distributed system to have a view on the
current global state of the system.
• The execution of a system can be described in terms of events and their ordering even though
the lack of accurate clocks.
• Logical clocks define some event order based on causality.
• Logical time can be used to provide ordering among events in different computers in a
distributed system (since real clocks cannot be synchronized).
s end receiv e receiv e
X
1 m1 4
m2
s end
2 3 receiv e Phy sical
Y
receiv e time

s end
Z
receiv e receiv e

m3 m1 m2
A
receiv e receiv e receiv e
t1 t2 t3

2. Failure Model: Defines the ways in which failure may occur in order to provide an understanding
of its effects.
• The classification of failures and differences between the failures of processes and
communication channels is provided as:
– Omission failures
• Process or channel failed to do something.
• Communication omission failures.
– Arbitrary failures
• Any type of error can occur in processes or channels (worst).
– Timing failures
• Applicable only to synchronous distributed systems where time limits may not be
met.
I. Omission failures:
• Process or channel failed to do something.
• Communication omission failures.
 Omission failures are classified into
1. Process omission failure 2. Communication omission failures

1. Process Omission Failures: The primary reason in processes for omission failure is its crash. That
means a process has been terminated completely. The design services that can resist the faults can
be simplified on the assumption that the services crash clearly. In a clean crash, a process
terminates or executes correctly. Due to a crash, the process does not respond to invocation
messages repeatedly. This favors other processes in identifying the crash using timeout implies that
a process is not responding. The reasons for this may be its crash or slow performance, or
undelivered of messages.
A crash that is identified by other processes is called fail-stop. This can be introduced in a
synchronous system as:
 If messages delivery is correct.
A.Sathiyaraj/Assoc.Prof/CSE Dept/RISE Groups
22  If processes employ timeouts identify failure of their processes.
Consider the example, if the reply to a process is not delivered within the specified time limit,
then the process that is waiting for the reply concludes that sender process has been failed.
2. Communication Omission Failures: Send and receive are two communication primitives. Consider
the example where send operation is performed by process A. It inserts a message in its outgoing
message buffer. Communication channel transmits this message to process B’s incoming message
buffer. Receive operation is performed by process B that takes the message from its incoming
message buffer and delivers it.
The communication channel raises an omission failure if the message from A’s outgoing
message buffer is not transmitted to B’s incoming message buffer. This is called a dropped message
which is due to insufficient buffer space at the receiver site or at the intervening gateway, or by
error at network transmission. These consequences are identified by the checksum that is attached
with the message content.
Following are the failures resulting due to loss of messages:
a) Send-omission failure: Occur in b/w sending process and outgoing message buffer.
b) Receive-Omission failures: Occur in b/w incoming message buffer and receiving process.
c) Channel-Omission failures: Occur in b/w outgoing message buffer and incoming message
buffer.
II. Arbitrary Failures: Arbitrary failure describes the semantics of a worst failure in which
there is a possibility of occurrence of any type of error. In a process an arbitrary failure is caused
when it skips any of its execution phases or adopts a new phase for execution. For example, a
process may set incorrect values in its data items or it may return an incorrect value.

III. Timing Failures: Timing failure is applicable in synchronous distributed system whereas in
asynchronous distributed system, it is not guaranteed.
a) Synchronous Distributed System: In synchronous distributed system, time limits are fixed on
process execution time, message delivery time and clock drift rate. A process is affected if it
exceeds its time bounds. A channel is affected if the time taken for the transmission exceeds the
specified bounds. A clock failure affects its process if its local time exceeds its drift rate bounds
from real time. These three failures fail to respond within the specified bounds.
b) Asynchronous Distributed system: In asynchronous distributed system, timing failure cannot be
guaranteed and there is a possibility of a heavily loaded server to respond late.

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2.4.4. Security Model:
23 Secure processes and channels and protect objects encapsulated
against unauthorized access.

• Protecting access to objects

– Access rights
– In client server systems: involves authentication of clients.
• Protecting processes and interactions
– Threats to processes: problem of unauthenticated requests / replies.
• e.g., "man in the middle"
– Threats to communication channels: enemy may copy, alter or inject messages as they
travel across network.
• Use of “secure” channels, based on cryptographic methods.

Making failures – Reliability of one-to-one communication:

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24

A.Sathiyaraj/Assoc.Prof/CSE Dept/RISE Groups