Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.1 Introduction and Definition

 Definition of a Distributed System
 Characteristics of Distributed System
 Organization and Goals of A Distributed Systems
 Hardware Concept and Software Concept
 The Client-Server model

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1.1 Introduction and Definition
 a distributed system is:
a collection of independent computers that appears to its
users as a single coherent system - computer (Tanenbaum
& Van Steen)
 this definition has two aspects:
1. hardware: autonomous machines

2. software: a single system view for the users

 Distributed system involves a collection of autonomous

computers, they are independent systems that posses
their own memory and CPU
 Distributed system consists of multiple software
Components that are on multiple computers, but runs as a
single system

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1.1 Introduction and Definition
 A distributed system contains multiple nodes that are
physically separated but linked together using network
 The computers that are in distributed system can be physically
close together and connected by LAN
 Or they can be geographically distant and connected by a WAN
 Distributed computing has become increasingly common due
advances that have made machines and networks cheaper and
faster
 Examples of distributed
 Distributed database
 World wide web
 Email

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1.1 Introduction and Definition
 Distributed system example
 Think about a large bank system with hundreds
of branch offices all over the country. Each office
has a master computer to store local accounts
and handle local transactions .In addition, each
computer has the ability to talk all other branch
computers and with central computer at
headquarter. If transactions can be done without
regarding to where costumer and account is

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 Characteristics of Distributed Systems
 differences between the computers and the ways they
communicate are hidden from users
 users and applications can interact with a distributed
system in a consistent and uniform way regardless of
location
 distributed systems should be easy to expand and scale
 a distributed system is normally continuously available,
even if there may be partial failures

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1.2 Organization and Goals of a Distributed System
 to support heterogeneous computers and networks and to
provide a single-system view, a distributed system is
often organized by means of a layer of software called
middleware that extends over multiple machines

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 Goals of a distributed system: a distributed system should
 easily connect users with resources (printers, computers,
storage facilities, data, files, Web pages, ...)
 reasons: economics, to collaborate and exchange
information
 be transparent: hide the fact that the resources and
processes are distributed across multiple computers
 be open
 be scalable
Transparency in a Distributed System
 a distributed system that is able to present itself to users
and applications as if it were only a single computer
system is said to be transparent

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 users and applications see the DS as a single coherent
system
 different forms of transparency in a distributed system
Transparency Description
Access Hide differences in data representation
and how a resource is accessed
Location Hide where a resource is physically
located
Migration Hide that a resource may move to another
location
Relocation Hide that a resource may be moved to
another location while in use
Replication Hide that a resource is replicated
Concurrency Hide that a resource may be shared by 9
several competitive users
Failure Hide the failure and recovery of a
 Openness in a Distributed System
 a distributed system should be open
 So that different open systems would be able to interact and use services
from each other
 interoperability
 components of different origin can communicate
 Support portability
 components work on different platforms
 We need well-defined interfaces
 such services are often specified through interfaces often described using an
Interface Definition Language (IDL):
 specify only syntax: the names of the functions, types of parameters, return values
 Distributed system should be independent from heterogeneity of the
underlying environment
 Hardware, Software Platforms, and Languages
 an Open Distributed System is a system that offers services according to
standard rules that describe the syntax and semantics of those services; e.g.,
protocols in networks

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 Scalability in Distributed Systems
 a distributed system should be scalable: there are three
dimensions
 size: adding more users and resources to the system
 geographically: users and resources may be far apart
 administratively: should be easy to manage even if it
spans many administrative organizations
 A distributed system is scalable if it will remain effective
when the number of resources and users is significantly
increased
 but a scalable system may exhibit performance problems

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 scalability problems: performance problems caused by limited capacity of servers and networks
 Solution :Simply improving their capacity (e.g., by increasing memory, upgrading CPUs, or
replacing network modules) is often a solution

 Scaling Techniques
 how to solve scaling problems for geographical scalability
 three possible solutions: hiding communication latencies,
distribution, and replication

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a. Hide Communication Latencies
 try to avoid waiting for responses to remote service
requests
 let the requester do other useful job
 i.e., construct requesting applications that use only
asynchronous communication instead of synchronous
communication; when a reply arrives the application is
interrupted
 good for batch processing and parallel applications but
not for interactive applications
 for interactive applications, move part of the job to the
client to reduce communication; e.g. filling a form and
checking the entries

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 (a) a server checking the correctness of field entries
(b) a client doing the job
 e.g., shipping code is now supported in Web applications using Java Applets
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b. Distribution
 Taking a component, splitting into smaller parts, and subsequently spreading them across the system. (E.g.
Domain Name System)
 There are multiple name servers that map symbolic name(hostname) to IP
 In a URL, the part between the // and the following / is the hostname of the server to which the client is going to
send the request
 for details, see later in Chapter 4 - Naming

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an example of dividing the DNS name space into zones

c. Replication
 replicate components across a distributed system to
increase availability and for load balancing, leading
to better performance
 that makes multiple copies of the same services or
data available at different machines
 By placing a replica close to the place where it is
accessed, also reduces communication latency
 caching (a special form of replication)
 but, caching and replication may lead to consistency
problems (see Chapter 6 - Consistency and
Replication)

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1.3 Hardware and Software Concepts
Hardware Concepts
 different classification schemes exist
 multiprocessors - with shared memory
 multicomputer - that do not share memory
can be homogeneous or heterogeneous

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  a single
backbone

different basic organizations of processors and memories in distributed

systems 18
 Multiprocessors - Shared Memory
 the shared memory has to be coherent - the same value
written by one processor must be read by another processor
 performance problem for bus-based organization since the
bus will be overloaded as the number of processors
increases
 the solution is to add a high-speed cache memory between
the processors and the bus to hold the most recently
accessed words; may result in incoherent memory

a bus-based multiprocessor
 bus-based multiprocessors are difficult to scale even with caches
 two possible solutions: crossbar switch and omega network 19
 Crossbar switch
 divide memory into modules and connect them to the processors
with a crossbar switch
 at every intersection, a crosspoint switch is opened and closed to
establish connection
 problem: expensive; with n CPUs and n memories, n2 switches
are required

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 Omega network
 use switches with multiple input and output lines
 drawback: high latency because of several switching
stages between the CPU and memory

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 Homogeneous Multicomputer Systems
 also referred to as System Area Networks (SANs)
 could be bus-based or switch-based
 bus-based
 shared multi access network such as Fast Ethernet can
be used and messages are broadcasted
 performance drops highly with more than 25-100 nodes

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 switch-based
 messages are routed through an interconnection network
 two popular topologies: meshes (or grids) and
hypercubes

Hypercube
Grid

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 Heterogeneous Multicomputer Systems
 most distributed systems are built on heterogeneous
multicomputer systems
 the computers could be different in processor type, memory
size, architecture, power, operating system, etc. and the
interconnection network may be highly heterogeneous as
well
 the distributed system provides a software layer to hide the
heterogeneity at the hardware level; i.e., provides
transparency

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 Software Concepts
OSs in relation to distributed systems
distributed OSs (DOS)
 network OSs (NOS)
 Middleware

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 Distributed Operating Systems
 OS essentially tries to maintain a single, global view of the
resources it manages (Tightly-coupled OS)
 used for multiprocessors and homogeneous multi computers
 Full transparency: users feel they are interacting with a big system
and are not aware of the existence of multiple machines

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general structure of a multicomputer operating system

 Network Operating Systems(loosely coupled OS)
 a collection of computers each running its own OS; they work together to make
their services and resources available to others via network
 possibly heterogeneous underlying hardware
 No transparency: users are aware of the multiplicity of the machines
 explicitly login into remote machines, or copy files from other machines
 Access to remote services similar to local resources

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general structure of a network operating system
 Middleware
 Most modern distributed systems are designed to provide a
level of transparency through a software layer on top of local
OSs
 This software layer is called Middleware

general structure of a distributed system as middleware  28

 Middleware
 Middleware hides the differences between various
computers and the ways in which they communicate
 It provides a single-system view
 As a result, middleware facilitates the
integration and interaction of various
networked applications in a consistent and
uniform manner

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 different middleware models exist
 through Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) - calling a procedure on a
remote machine
 distributed object invocation
 Message-oriented middleware
 (details later in Chapter 2 - Communication)

 middleware services
 access transparency: by hiding the low-level message
passing(calling a procedure or invoking an object remotely)
 Naming : such as a URL in the WWW
 Distributed transactions: by allowing multiple read and write
operations to occur atomically(TPM)
 Security: middleware authenticate access to data and
services
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1.4 The Client-Server Model
 how are processes organized in distributed system
 thinking in terms of clients requesting services from servers
 A server is a process implementing a specific service(file, database server
 A Client is a process that requests a service from server and subsequently waiting for the server’s reply

general interaction between a client and a server

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1.4 The Client-Server Model
 Client-Server Architectures
 how to physically distribute a client-server application across several machines:
 Two-Tired architecture
 Physically distribute a client‐server application across two machines:
1. A client machine containing only the programs implementing (part of) the user-interface level
2. A server machine containing the rest, that is the programs implementing the processing and data level
 Everything is handled by the server while the client is essentially no more than dump terminal, possibly with a pretty graphical interface

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 Two-tiered architecture: alternative client-server organizations

a) Place only terminal-dependent part of the user interface on the client

machine
b) place the entire user-interface software on the client side

c) move part of the application to the client, e.g. checking correctness in filling
forms
d) and e) are for powerful client machines 33
 three tiered Architectures
Many client‐server applications are organized into three layers
the user-interface level: consists of the program that allows end users to
interact with application; usually through GUIs, but not necessarily
the processing level: contains the core functionality of the application
the data level: contains the actual data that a client wants to manipulate
through the application

three tiered architecture: an example of a server acting as a client

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 the general organization of an Internet search engine into three different
layers

browser acts as an entry point to a site, passing requests to an application

server where the actual processing takes place, this application server, in tum,
interacts with a database server

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 Modern Architectures
 vertical distribution: placing logically different components on different machines
 Dividing applications into a user-interface , processing component and data and distribute
across multiple machines
 horizontal distribution: physically split up the client or the server into logically equivalent
parts. e.g. Web server

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an example of horizontal distribution of a Web service

Distributed Computing Systems: Cluster
 Many distributed systems are configured for High-
Performance Computing
 Cluster computing: a group of high-end systems
connected through a LAN
• Homogeneous: same OS, near-identical hardware
• Single managing node

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Distributed Computing Systems: Grid
 Grid computing: lots of nodes from everywhere
• Heterogeneous
•Dispersed across several organizations
•Can easily span a wide-area network
 To allow for collaborations, grids generally use virtual
organizations.
• A group of users that will allow for authorization on
resource allocation

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Distributed Computing Systems: Cloud
 Cloud computing: make a distinction between four layers.
 Hardware: processors, routers, power and cooling
systems. Customers normally never get to see these.
 Infrastructure: deploys virtualization techniques. Evolves
around allocating and managing virtual storage devices
and virtual servers. (IaaS)
 Platform: provides higher-level abstractions for storage
and such. (PaaS)
 Application: actual applications, such as office suites, e.g.,
text processors, spreadsheet applications. (SaaS)

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Distributed Computing Systems: Cloud

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