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Naming Services

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9 views15 pages

Naming Services

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Ulysses John
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CS 603

Naming in Distributed Systems

January 28, 2002


This week:
Naming in Distributed Systems
• Today: Overview
– What is a name
– Issues
– Examples
• Wednesday and Friday: Name Resolution
– Historical (Telephone, mail, …)?
– DNS?
– DCE?
– Others?
What is a name?
An identifier that:
• Identifies a resource
– Uniquely?
– Describes the resource?
• Enables us to locate that resource
– Directly?
– With help?
• Is it really an identifier?
– Bijective, persistent
Key issues in Naming
• How is name used?
– Disambiguate only
– Access resource given the name
– Build a name to find a resource
• Do humans need to use name?
– Construct?
– Recall?
Key issues in Naming (cont.)
• Is resource static?
– Never moves
– Change in location should change name
– Resource may move
– Resource is mobile
• Performance requirements
Approaches to naming
• Globally unique identifier
– Ethernet
– Solves identification, but not description or
location
• Hierarchically assigned globally unique
identifier
– Telephone number, IP address
– Solves identification, not description
– Helps with location
Approaches to naming
• Hierarchically assigned name
– Domain Name Service, URL
– Solves identification
– Helps with description
– Still problems with location
• Globally unique name
– TCP/IP Protocol Ports
– Extensibility problems
Approaches to naming
• Registries and name spaces
– Uniform Resource Name (URN)
– Solves identification and location
• If we can get to the registry
– Helps with description
• Registry can describe in detail
– Complicated!
URI, URL, URN
• URI: Uniform Resource Identifier
– IETF meta-standard
– Defines naming schemes / protocols
– Each naming scheme has it’s own mechanism
• URL: Uniform Resource Locator
– Uses DNS to map to host
– Host knows how to map remainder to resource
• URN: Uniform Resource Name
– Idea: Permanent URL
URN
• Each URN maps to a namespace
– Currently 10 formally defined: IETF, ISBN, XMLORG,
…
– Also informal: (3 current) and experimental
(unregistered)
• Syntax: “urn:” <Namespace ID> “:” <string>
– urn:ISBN:0-13-032071-4
– urn:ietf:rfc:2141
• (Bad) Example:
– URN:<assigned number>:<FQDN>:<assigned string>
– urn:x-1234:www.cs.purdue.edu:%7eclifton%2Fcs603%2f
Naming: Why an Issue for
Application Developers?
• DNS is widely accepted standard
– Only names machines
– Doesn’t handle mobility
• URI / URN will become standard
– Can be descriptive
– Globally unique
– Persistent
– But expensive to create
Applications that might need
custom solutions
• Distributed Database
– Needs persistence
– May be multiple resources for single name
(replication)
– May need to support mobility
– PERFORMANCE!
• Small-scale applications
– Do you really want to register with IANA?
– Is persistence necessary?
Distributed Database Example:
R*
• R* developed at IBM Almaden Research – first
distributed relational database
• Wanted mobility of resources
– Supports fault tolerance
– But movement rare
• Performance is critical
• Solution: Two components to name
– Unique ID assigned by “birthplace”
– Local catalog maps ID to:
• Birthplace (maintains current location)
• Presumed current location
Security Considerations
• Does name give away information?
– Social Security Numbers
– URL
– Batched IDs (e.g., Ethernet)
– Sequentially assigned IDs
• Solution: Define what name SHOULD do
– Ensure it meets goals
– Look for reasons it doesn’t
Name Resolution:
What would you like?
• Historical?
– Mail
– Telephone
• DNS?
• X.500 / LDAP?
• DCE?
• ActiveDirectory?

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