Distributed Systems

A Brief Introduction
 OUTLINE
BRIEF HISTORY.
WHAT ARE DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ? ?
WHY DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ? ?
ADVANTAGES OF D.S. OVER THE
CENTRALIZED SYSTEM.
ADVANTAGES OF D.S. OVER
INDEPENDENT PCS.
 OUTLINE (Contd.)
ORGANIZATION OF DISTRIBUTED
SYSTEM.
GOALS OF D.S.
Resource Sharing.

Openness.

Transparency.

Scalability.

Pitfalls.
 OUTLINE (Contd.)
Concurrency.
TYPES OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS.
Distributed Computing Systems.

Distributed Information Systems.

Distributed Pervasive Systems.

SUMMARY.
 HISTORY
1945~1985
Computers were large and expensive.
No way to connect them.
All systems were Centralized Systems.

Mid-1980s
Powerful microprocessors.
High Speed Computer Networks (LANs ,

WANs).
 HISTORY (Contd.)

Then came the

DISTRIBUTED
SYSTEMS
 What is a Distributed System (DS)?
A distributed system is a piece of software that ensures
that a collection of independent computers appears
to its users as a single coherent system. (A. Tanenbaum)
Two aspects:
(1) independent computers and (2) single

system => middleware.

One which components located at networked computers
communicate and coordinate their actions by message
passing. (G. Coulouris)
 Contd.
You know you have one when the crash of a computer
you have never heard of stops you from getting any work
done (Leslie Lamport)

A distributed system is a system designed to support the

development of applications and services which can
exploit a physical architecture consisting of multiple,
autonomous processing elements that do not share
primary memory but cooperate by sending asynchronous
messages over a communication network (Blair & Stefani)
 EXAMPLES
World Wide Web (WWW) is the biggest
example of distributed system.
Clusters, Network of workstations
Distributed Manufacturing system (e.g.,
automated assembly line)
Network of branch office computers-Information
system to handle automatic processing of orders.
Network of embedded systems
New Cell processor (Playstation 3)
 WHY DISTRIBUTED
SYSTEMS ? ?
availability of powerful yet cheap
microprocessors (PCs,
workstations),
continuing advances in
communication technology
 ADVANTAGES OF D.S. OVER
CENTRALIZED SYSTEM:
Economics:
A collection of microprocessors offer a better
price/performance than mainframes. Low
price/performance ratio: cost effective way to
increase computing power.
Reliability:
If one machine crashes, the system as a whole
can still survive. Higher availability and improved
reliability.
 ADVANTAGES (Contd.)
Speed: a distributed system may have more
total computing power than a mainframe.
Ex.: 10,000 CPU chips, each running at 50
MIPS (million instructions per second). Not possible to
build 500,000 MIPS single processor.
Enhanced performance through load
distributing.
 ADVANTAGES (Contd.)

Incremental growth: Computing

power can be added in small
increments. This leads to Modular
expandability
 ADVANTAGES OF D.S. OVER
INDEPENDENT PCs:

Data sharing: allow many users to

access to a common data base.
Resource Sharing: expensive
peripherals like color printers.
 ADVANTAGES (Contd.)
Communication: enhance human-
to-human communication. E.g.:
email, chat.

Flexibility: spread the workload

over the available machines
 ORGANIZATION OF D.S.:

A distributed system organized as middleware.

The middleware layer extends over multiple machines, and offers each
application the same interface.
 GOALS OF D.S. :
Resource Sharing.
Openness.

Transparency.

Scalability.

Concurrency.

Pitfalls
 RESOURCE SHARING:
With Distributed Systems, it is easier for
users to access remote resources and to share
resources with other users.
Examples: printers, files, Web pages, etc

A distributed system should also make it

easier for users to exchange information.

Easier resource and data exchange could

cause security problems a distributed

system should deal with this problem.
 OPENNESS:
The openness of DS is determined primarily
by the degree to which new resource-
sharing services can be added and be made
available for use by a variety of client
programs.
Make it easier to build and change

Standard interface, separation of policy from

mechanism
 OPENNESS: (Contd.)
Monolithic Kernel: systems calls are trapped
and executed by the kernel. All system calls
are served by the kernel, e.g., UNIX.
Microkernel: provides minimal services.

IPC
some memory management
some low-level process management and
scheduling
low-level i/o (E.g., Mach can support multiple
file systems, multiple system interfaces.)
 TRANSPARENCY:
It hides the fact that the processes and
resources are physically distributed
across multiple computers.
Transparency is of various forms as
follows:
TRANSPARENCY (Contd.)
 SCALABILITY:
A system is described as scalable if it
remains effective when there is a significant
increase in the number of resources and the
number of users.
Challenges:
Controlling the cost of resources or money.
Controlling the performance loss.
 SCALABILITY PROBLEMS
Characteristics of decentralized algorithms:
No machine has complete information
about the system state.
Machines make decisions based only on
local information.
Failure of one machine does not ruin the
algorithm.
There is no implicit assumption that a
globalclock exists.
 CONCURRENCY:
There is a possibility that several clients
will attempt to access a shared resource
at the same time.
Any object that represents a shared

resource in a distributed system must be

responsible for ensuring that operates
correctly in a concurrent environment.
 PITFALLS:
Software Complexity
Little software exists at present. It is difficult to implement
sophisticated software on distributed system, because the software
has to take care of many machines simultaneously for their
interaction.
Communication Network

Because of users share many paths to the network; the

communication is slower compare to a stand-alone system.
Moreover, if the network underlying a distributed system saturates
or goes down, then the distributed system will be effectively
disabled thus negating most of the advantages of the distributed
system.
 PITFALLS:
Security
In a distributed system, everyone can conveniently
access data all over the system; people may equally be
able to conveniently access data that they have no business
looking at. In other words, security is often a problem. For
data that must be kept secret at all costs, it is often
preferable to have a dedicated, isolated stand-alone system
that has no network connections to any other machines.
 TYPES OF D.S. :
Distributed Computing Systems.
Cluster Computing Systems.
Grid Computing Systems.

Distributed Information Systems.

Distributed Pervasive Systems.
 DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING
SYSTEMS:
Goal: High performance computing tasks.
Cluster Computing Systems:
A supercomputer built from off the

shelf computer in a high-speed network

(usually a LAN)
Most common use: a single program is run

in parallel on multiple machines

Cluster Computing Systems:
 (Contd.)
Grid Computing Systems:
Contrary to clusters, grids are usually

composed of different types of computers

(hardware, OS, network, security, etc.)
Resources from different organizations are

brought together to allow collaboration

Examples: SETI@home, WWW
Grid Computing Systems:
 DISTRIBUTED
INFORMATION SYSTEMS:
Goal: Distribute information across several
Servers.
Remote processes called Clients access the
servers to manipulate the information
Different communication models are used.
The most usual are RPC (Remote Procedure
Calls) and the object oriented RMI (Remote
Method Invocations)
 (Contd.)
Often associated with Transaction
systems
Examples:
Banks;
Travel agencies;
Rent-a-Cars;
Etc
 DISTRIBUTED PERVASIVE
SYSTEMS:
These are the distributed systems involving
mobile and embedded computer devices like
Small, wireless, battery-powered devices (PDAs,
smart phones, sensors, wireless surveillance
cams, portable ECG monitors, etc.)
These systems characterized by their instability
when compared to more traditional distributed
systems
 (Contd.)
Pervasive Systems are all around us, and ideally
should be able to adapt to the lack of human
administrative control:
Automatically connect to a different network;
Discover services and react accordingly;
Automatic self configuration (E.g.: UPnP
Universal Plug and Play)
Examples: Home Systems, Electronic Health
Care Systems, Sensor Networks, etc.
 SUMMARY
Distributed systems are everywhere
Internet, intranet, wireless networks.
Resource sharing is the main motivating
factor for constructing distributed systems.
The construction of distributed systems

produces many challenges like Secure

communication over public networks.