Introduction To Distributed

Systems

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 Introduction
• Computer revolution started from the year 1945 (modern era)
• During the year 1985 large and expensive computers were available
• As time progressed new developments took place and two new technologies
were developed. They are
1. Powerful microprocessor (8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit, 64 bit)

2. High speed networks (100 Gbits/sec LAN – , 10 Gbits/sec WAN)

• The result of above two technologies were;

1. flexibility
2. easy to access and put together all the computing systems
connected together with high speed network.
The above result leads to distributed systems…. Than previous centralized
systems.
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 Taxonomy
• Flynn’s taxonomy is a classification scheme for
computer architectures proposed by Michael Flynn
in 1966.
• The taxonomy is based on the number of instruction
streams and data streams that can be processed
simultaneously by a computer architecture.

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 Taxonomy
• There are four categories in Flynn’s taxonomy:
• Single Instruction Single Data (SISD)
• Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD)
• Multiple Instruction Single Data (MISD)
• Multiple Instruction Multiple Data (MIMD)

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 Single-instruction, single-data (SISD)
systems
• An SISD computing system is a uniprocessor machine that
is capable of executing a single instruction, operating on a
single data stream. In SISD, machine instructions are
processed in a sequential manner and computers adopting
this model are popularly called sequential computers.

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 Single-instruction, multiple-data
(SIMD) systems
• An SIMD system is a multiprocessor machine capable of
executing the same instruction on all the CPUs but
operating on different data streams. Machines based on a
SIMD model are well suited to scientific computing since
they involve lots of vector and matrix operations.

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 Multiple-instruction, single-data
(MISD) systems
• An MISD computing system is a multiprocessor machine
capable of executing different instructions on different PEs
but all of them operate on the same dataset.

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 Multiple-instruction, multiple-data
(MIMD) systems
• An MIMD system is a multiprocessor machine that is
capable of executing multiple instructions on multiple data
sets. Each PE in the MIMD model has separate instruction
and data streams; therefore machines built using this model
are capable of any application.

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Definition of a Distributed System (1)

A distributed system is:

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

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Definition of a Distributed System (2)

1.1

A distributed system organized as middleware.

Note that the middleware layer extends over multiple machines.

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Definition means..

1. distributed systems consists of components

(computers) that are autonomous (independent, self-
directing)

2. users they are dealing with single system i.e all the
autonomous computers need to collaborate with each
others through passing messages.

when autonomous computers are collaborated we get distributed systems.

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 Characteristic of distributed systems

1. Resource sharing (h/w, s/w, data, files, should have

resource manger)

2. Openness

3. Concurrency

4. Scalability

5. Fault Tolerance

6. Transparency

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 1. Resources Sharing
• Access resources and share them in a controlled and efficient
way.
– Printers, computers, storage facilities, data, files, Web pages, and
networks, …

• Connecting users and resources also makes it easier to

collaborate and exchange information.
– Internet for exchanging files, mail, documents, audio, and video

• Security is becoming increasingly important

– Little protection against eavesdropping or intrusion on
communication
– Tracking communication to build up a preference profile of a specific
user

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 2. Openness
Goal: Open distributed system -- able to interact with services from
other open systems, irrespective of the underlying environment:

– System should conform to well-defined interface

– Systems should support portability of applications
– Systems should easily interoperate

Achieving openness: At least make the distributed system

independent from heterogeneity of the underlying
environment:
– Hardware
– Platforms
– Languages
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 3. Concurrency
Concurrency refers when the two or more
transaction are executed simultaneously.
Ex. Multiprogramming/Parallel programming and Multiprocessing..

Parallel executions in distributed systems

1. Many users using the same resources, application interactions

2. Many servers responding to client requests

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 4. Scalability
• How the system handles growth

The current Internet is an example of scalable system

• Scalability: At least three components:

– Number of users and/or processes (size scalability)
– Maximum distance between nodes (geographical scalability)
– Number of administrative domains (administrative scalability)– (it can
still be easy to manage even if it spans many independent administrative
organizations.)

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 5. Fault Tolerance

• Hardware, Software, network may fail at any point

of time.
• Fault tolerance can be achieved by….

1. Hardware redundancy
2. Software recovery scheme (i.e. Self Healing S/W)

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 6. Transparency
• It is an important goal of the distributed system to
hide the fact that its processes and resources are
distributed across the multiple computers.

• Transparency is defined as the masking from the user

and the application programmer regarding the
separation of components, so that the whole system
seems to be like a single entity rather than individual
components.

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 Aim of Transparency
• Transparency’s major goal is to make certain features of
distribution opaque to application programmers so they may
focus on the design of their specific activity.

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Transparency in a Distributed System
Transparency Description
Hide differences in data representation and how a
Access
resource is accessed
Location Hide where a resource is located
Migration Hide that a resource may move to another location
Hide that a resource may be moved to another
Relocation
location while in use
Hide that a resource may be shared by several
Replication
competitive users
Users share resources transparently with each
Concurrency
other without interference.
Failure Hide the failure and recovery of a resource
Hide whether a (software) resource is in memory or
Persistence
on disk

Different forms of transparency in a distributed system.

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 Advantages of Distributed Systems
1. Performance: very often a collection of processors can provide higher performance
(and better price/performance ratio) than a centralized computer.

2. Distribution: many applications involve, by their nature, spatially separated

machines (banking, commercial, automotive system).

3. Reliability (fault tolerance): if some of the machines crash, the system can survive.
4. Incremental growth: as requirements on processing power grow, new machines can
be added incrementally.

5. Sharing of data/resources: shared data is essential to many applications (banking,

computer supported cooperative work, reservation systems); other resources can be
also shared (e.g. expensive printers).

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 Disadvantages of Distributed Systems
• Difficulties of developing distributed software: how
should operating systems, programming languages and
applications look like?

• Networking problems: several problems are created

by the network infrastructure, which have to be dealt
with: loss of messages, overloading, ...

• Security problems: sharing generates the problem of

data security.
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 References

1.www.csc.villanova.edu/~schragge/CSC8530/Intro.html –

2. www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/ucacwxe/lectures/ds98-99/dsee3.pdf

3. www.ida.liu.se/~TDDD25/lecture-notes/lect1.frm.pdf

4. Distributed Systems, Principles and Paradigms, 2nd edition, by

Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Maarten Van Steen

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