ICS 2403

DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Lecture 1: Introduction to
Distributed Systems

PROF CHERUIYOT
TTU
COMPUTING & INFORMATICS DEPARTMENT 1
OUTLINE

1. What is a Distributed System

2. Examples of Distributed Systems
3. Common Characteristics
4. Basic Design Issues
5. Summary

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GOALS OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
Take advantage of cost/performance difference between
microprocessors and shared memory multiprocessors

Build systems:
1. with a single system image
2. with higher performance
3. with higher reliability
4. for less money than uniprocessor systems

In wide-area distributed systems, information and work

are physically distributed, implying that computing
needs should be distributed. Besides improving
response time, this contributes to political goals such as
local control over data.
1. DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM TYPES

Fully
Control Distributed

ta
Da
Autonomous
fully cooperative
Local data,
Autonomous local directory
transaction based Not fully replicated
master directory
Master-slave Fully replicated

Homog. Homog.
special general Processors
purpose purpose
Heterog. Heterog.
special general 4
purpose purpose
1. WHAT IS A DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM?

Definition: A distributed system is one in which

components located at networked computers
communicate and coordinate their actions only by
passing messages. This definition leads to the
following characteristics of distributed systems:

 Concurrency of components
 Lack of a global ‘clock’
 Independent failures of components
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1.1 CENTRALIZED 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

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1.2 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
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2. EXAMPLES OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

 Local Area Network and Intranet

 Database Management System
 Automatic Teller Machine Network
 Internet/World-Wide Web
 Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing

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2.1 LOCAL AREA NETWORK
email server Desktop
computers
print and other servers

Local area
Web server network

email server
print
File server
other servers

the rest of
the Internet
router/firewall
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2.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

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2.3 AUTOMATIC TELLER MACHINE
NETWORK

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2.4 INTERNET

intranet 

 ISP

backbone

satellite link

desktop computer:
server:
network link:

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2.4.1 WORLD-WIDE-WEB

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2.4.2 WEB SERVERS AND WEB
BROWSERS
http://www.google.comlsearch?q=lyu
www.google.com

Browsers
Web servers

www.uu.se Internet
http://www.uu.se/

www.w3c.org

File system of http://www.w3c.org/Protocols/Activity.html

www.w3c.org Protocols

Activity.html
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2.5 MOBILE AND UBIQUITOUS
COMPUTING

Internet

Host intranet GSM/GPRS

Wireless LAN gateway Home intranet

Mobile
phone
Printer Laptop
Camera Host site
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3. COMMON CHARACTERISTICS

 What are we trying to achieve when we construct a

distributed system?
 Certain common characteristics can be used to assess
distributed systems
 Heterogeneity
 Openness
 Security
 Scalability
 Failure Handling
 Concurrency
 Transparency

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3.1 HETEROGENEITY
 Variety and differences in
 Networks
 Computer hardware
 Operating systems
 Programming languages
 Implementations by different developers
 Middleware as software layers to provide a programming
abstraction as well as masking the heterogeneity of the
underlying networks, hardware, OS, and programming
languages (e.g., CORBA).
 Mobile Code to refer to code that can be sent from one
computer to another and run at the destination (e.g., Java
applets and Java virtual machine).
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3.2 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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3.3 SECURITY
 In a distributed system, clients send requests to
access data managed by servers, resources in
the networks:
 Doctors requesting records from hospitals
 Users purchase products through electronic commerce
 Security is required for:
 Concealing the contents of messages: security and
privacy
 Identifying a remote user or other agent correctly
(authentication)
 New challenges:
 Denial of service attack
 Security of mobile code
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3.4 SCALABILITY
 Adaptation of distributed systems to
 accommodate 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!

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3.5 FAILURE HANDLING (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

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3.6 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.

 Lostupdates
 Inconsistent analysis

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3.7 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 aspects.
 These represent various properties that
distributed systems should have.

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4. BASIC DESIGN ISSUES
 General software engineering principles
include rigor and formality, separation of
concerns, modularity, abstraction,
anticipation of change, …
 Specific issues for distributed systems:
 Naming
 Communication
 Software structure
 System architecture
 Workload allocation
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 Consistency maintenance
4.1 NAMING
 A name is resolved when translated into an
interpretable form for resource/object reference.
 Communication identifier (IP address + port number)
 Name resolution involves several translation steps
 Design considerations
 Choiceof name space for each resource type
 Name service to resolve resource names to comm. id.
 Name services include naming context resolution,
hierarchical structure, resource protection

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4.2 COMMUNICATION
 Separated components communicate with sending
processes and receiving processes for data transfer
and synchronization.
 Message passing: send and receive primitives
 synchronous or blocking
 asynchronous or non-blocking
 Abstractions defined: channels, sockets, ports.
 Communication patterns: client-server
communication (e.g., RPC, function shipping) and
group multicast

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4.3 SOFTWARE STRUCTURE
 Layers in centralized computer systems:

Applications
Middleware

Operating system
Computer and Network Hardware

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4.3 SOFTWARE STRUCTURE
 Layers and dependencies in distributed systems:

Applications

Open
Distributed programming services
support

Open system kernel services

Computer and network hardware
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4.4 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURES
 Client-Server
 Peer-to-Peer

 Services provided by multiple servers

 Proxy servers and caches

 Mobile code and mobile agents

 Network computers

 Thin clients and mobile devices

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4.4.1 CLIENTS INVOKE INDIVIDUAL
SERVERS

Client invocation invocation Server

result result
Server

Client
Key:
Process: Computer:

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4.4.2 PEER-TO-PEER SYSTEMS
Peer 2

Peer 1
Application

Application

Sharable Peer 3
objects
Application

Peer 4

Application

Peers 5 .... N
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4.4.3 A SERVICE BY MULTIPLE SERVERS
Service

Server
Client

Server

Client
Server

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4.4.4 WEB PROXY SERVER

Client Web
server
Proxy
server

Client Web
server

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4.4.5 WEB APPLETS
a) client request results in the downloading of applet code

Client Web
Applet code server

b) client interacts with the applet

Web
Client Applet server

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4.4.6 THIN CLIENTS AND COMPUTE
SERVERS

Compute server
Network computer or PC

Thin network Application

Client Process

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5. SUMMARY
 Definitions of distributed systems and comparisons to
centralized systems.
 The characteristics of distributed systems.

 The eight forms of transparency.

 The basic design issues.

 Read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the textbook.

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