DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Introduction
A distributed system is a software system in which components located on networked
computers communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages. The components
interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal.

Distributed systems Principles

A distributed system consists of a collection of autonomous computers, connected

through a network and distribution middleware, which enables computers to coordinate their
activities and to share the resources of the system, so that users perceive the system as a single,
integrated computing facility.

Centralised 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

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

Examples of distributed systems and applications of distributed computing include the following:

 telecommunication networks:
 telephone networks and cellular networks,
 computer networks such as the Internet,
 wireless sensor networks,
 routing algorithms;

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  network applications:
 World wide web and peer-to-peer networks,
 massively multiplayer online games and virtual reality communities,
 distributed databases and distributed database management systems,

 network file systems,

 distributed information processing systems such as banking systems and airline reservation
systems;
 real-time process control:
 aircraft control systems,
 industrial control systems;
 parallel computation:
 scientific computing, including cluster computing and grid computing and various volunteer
computing projects (see the list of distributed computing projects),
 distributed rendering in computer graphics.
Common Characteristics

Certain common characteristics can be used to assess distributed systems

 Resource Sharing
 Openness
 Concurrency
 Scalability
 Fault Tolerance
 Transparency

Resource Sharing

 Ability to use any hardware, software or data anywhere in the system.

 Resource manager controls access, provides naming scheme and controls concurrency.
 Resource sharing model (e.g. client/server or object-based) describing how

 resources are provided,

 they are used and
 provider and user interact with each other.

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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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.
o Lost updates

o Inconsistent analysis

Scalability

 Adaption of distributed systems to

• accomodate 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

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

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 dimensions that were identified by ANSA.

• These represent various properties that distributed systems should have.

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Access Transparency

Enables local and remote information objects to be accessed using identical operations.

• Example: File system operations in NFS.

• Example: Navigation in the Web.
• Example: SQL Queries

Location Transparency
Enables information objects to be accessed without knowledge of their location.

• Example: File system operations in NFS

• Example: Pages in the Web
• Example: Tables in distributed databases

Concurrency Transparency

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

• Example: NFS
• Example: Automatic teller machine network
• Example: Database management system

Replication Transparency

Enables multiple instances of information objects to be used to increase reliability and

performance without knowledge of the replicas by users or application programs

• Example: Distributed DBMS

• Example: Mirroring Web Pages.

Failure Transparency

• Enables the concealment of faults

• Allows users and applications to complete their tasks despite the failure of other
components.
• Example: Database Management System

Migration Transparency

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

• Example: NFS
• Example: Web Pages

Performance Transparency
Allows the system to be reconfigured to improve performance as loads vary.
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 • Example: Distributed make.

Scaling Transparency

Allows the system and applications to expand in scale without change to the system structure or
the application algortithms.

• Example: World-Wide-Web
• Example: Distributed Database

Distributed Systems: Hardware Concepts

• Multiprocessors
• Multicomputers

Networks of Computers

Multiprocessors and Multicomputers

Distinguishing features:

• Private versus shared memory

• Bus versus switched interconnection

Networks of Computers

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High degree of node heterogeneity:
• High-performance parallel systems (multiprocessors as well as multicomputers)
• High-end PCs and workstations (servers)
• Simple network computers (offer users only network access)
• Mobile computers (palmtops, laptops)
• Multimedia workstations

High degree of network heterogeneity:

• Local-area gigabit networks
• Wireless connections
• Long-haul, high-latency connections
• Wide-area switched megabit connections

Distributed Systems: Software Concepts

Distributed operating system
_ Network operating system
_ Middleware

Distributed Operating System

Some characteristics:
_ OS on each computer knows about the other computers
_ OS on different computers generally the same
_ Services are generally (transparently) distributed across computers

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Network Operating System
Some characteristics:
_ Each computer has its own operating system with networking facilities
_ Computers work independently (i.e., they may even have different operating systems)
_ Services are tied to individual nodes (ftp, telnet, WWW)
_ Highly file oriented (basically, processors share only files)

Distributed System (Middleware)

Some characteristics:
_ OS on each computer need not know about the other computers
_ OS on different computers need not generally be the same
_ Services are generally (transparently) distributed across computers

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 -

Need for Middleware

Motivation: Too many networked applications were
hard or difficult to integrate:
_ Departments are running different NOSs
_ Integration and interoperability only at level of primitive NOS services
_ Need for federated information systems:
– Combining different databases, but providing a single view to applications
– Setting up enterprise-wide Internet services, making use of existing information systems
– Allow transactions across different databases
– Allow extensibility for future services (e.g., mobility, teleworking, collaborative applications)
_ Constraint: use the existing operating systems, and treat them as the underlying environment
(they provided the basic functionality anyway)

Communication services: Abandon primitive socket based message passing in favor of:
_ Procedure calls across networks
_ Remote-object method invocation
_ Message-queuing systems
_ Advanced communication streams
_ Event notification service
Information system services: Services that help manage data in a distributed system:
_ Large-scale, system wide naming services
_ Advanced directory services (search engines)
_ Location services for tracking mobile objects
_ Persistent storage facilities
_ Data caching and replication

Control services: Services giving applications control over when, where, and how they access
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_ Distributed transaction processing
_ Code migration
Security services: Services for secure processing and communication:
_ Authentication and authorization services
_ Simple encryption services
_ Auditing service

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