CSC

CSC 3209
3209

DISTRIBUTED
DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING
COMPUTING
Instructor:
Instructor: Aggrey
Aggrey M.O
M.O
aobbo@must.ac.ug
aobbo@must.ac.ug
 LECTURES

Wednesday 10:00-12:00pm

05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 2

 REFERENCES
• Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Marten van Steen:
“Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms”
Prentice-Hall, 2002
• “Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms” -
Tannenbaum & van Steen, Second Edition

• George Coulouris, Jean Dollimore and Tim Kindberg:

– “Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design”
• 3rd Edition, Addison-Wesley, 2001
• Andrew S. Tanenbaum:
– “Distributed Operating Systems”
• Prentice-Hall, 1994
• Sape J. Mullender:
– “Distributed Systems”
• 2nd Edition, ACM Press, 1993
05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 3
 Course Objectives
• Become familiar with intricacies of
– independent failure of components
– concurrency
– lack of a global clock
• Place distributed systems in a realistic context
through examples:
– Internet, intranet, mobile computing
• Motivate the benefits of resource sharing
– The Web

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 Objectives contd
• Gain an understanding of challenges:
– heterogeneity
– openness
– security
– scalability
– failure handling
– concurrency
– transparency

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 Course Outline:
• Introduction
• Communication
• Processes
• Naming
• Synchronization
• Consistency and Replication
• Fault Tolerance
• Distributed real time systems

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 Introduction
Lecture 1

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 Centralized vs.
Distributed Computing
t e r m in a l
m a i n f r a m e c o m p u t e r
w o r k s t a t i o n

n e t w o r k l in k

n e t w o r k h o s t
c e n t r a l i z e d c o m p u t i n g
d i s t r i b u t e d c o m p u t i n g

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 Definition of a Distributed
System
• Early computing was performed on a single processor. Uni-processor
computing can be called centralized computing.

• While a distributed system is a collection of independent computers,

interconnected via a network, capable of collaborating on a task. It
appears to its users as a single coherent system.

• They communicate and coordinate their actions only by passing messages

• concurrent execution of programs
• no global clock
• components fail independently of one another. E.g.

• Distributed computing is computing performed in a distributed system.

• Distributed computing has become increasingly common due to advances

that have made in both machines and networks cheaper and faster

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• You know you have a distributed system when
the crash of a computer you’ve never heard of
stops you from getting any work done.”
-Lamport.

Driving force – Sharing resources

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• “Distributed computing or Distributed
system is the process of aggregating
the power of several computing entities
to collaboratively run a single
computational task in a transparent and
coherent way, so that they appear as a
single, centralized system.”

05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 11

 Example Distributed
systems
• Internet
– Messaging
– Services and Service providers
– Backbone
• Intranet/Workgroups
– Intranet Services
– Why intranet. E.g.
– Firewall
• ATM (bank) machines

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 Typical Internet

intranet ☎
☎
☎ ISP

backbone

satellite link

desktop computer:
server:
network link:

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 Computers on the
Internet
• Workstations: computers used by end-users to perform
computing

• Server machines: computers which provide resources and

services

• Personal Assistance Devices: handheld computers

connected to the system via a wireless communication link.

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 Benefits of distributing
computing
• Resource sharing
– Hardware
– Software E.g. Databases, currency converters
– Computer-supported cooperative working (CSCW)
– Service , Server, remote invocation {Client or Server
(always on)}
• Scalability
• Fault tolerance and availability
• Performance
– Parallel computing can be considered a subset of
distributed computing

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 Distributed software
systems
• Distributed Systems
• Middleware
• Distributed applications

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 Distributed system
components

A distributed system is organized as middleware.

Note that the middleware layer extends over multiple
machines.

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Challenges in distributed
computing
• Heterogeneity
– Data representation
– Programs need common Standards
– Heterogeneity and mobile codes
• Latency
• Remote Memory Vs Local Memory
• Synchronization
– Concurrent interactions the norm
• Partial failure
– Applications need to adapt gracefully in the face of partial failure
– Lamport once defined a distributed system as “One on which I cannot
get any work done because some machine I have never heard of has
crashed”

05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 18

 Reading Assignment
• Techniques to deal with failures

05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 19

 Challenges in distributed
computing
• Need for “openness”
– Open standards: key interfaces in software and communication protocols need to
be standardized. Complexity of additions by many different people.
• Security
– Denial of service attacks
– Mobile code - Trojan
• Scalability
– Costs of physical resources
– Controlling performance loss
– Resources running out e.g. IP addresses
– Avoiding performance overhead (Cashing)
• Transparency
Defined as concealment from the user and application programmer of the
separation of components in a distributed system

05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 20

 Transparency in Distributed
Systems
Access transparency: enables local and remote resources to be
accessed using identical operations.
Location transparency: enables resources to be accessed
without knowledge of their physical or network location (for
example, which building or IP address).
Concurrency transparency: enables several processes to
operate concurrently using shared resources without
interference between them.
Replication transparency: enables multiple instances of
resources to be used to increase reliability and performance
without knowledge of the replicas by users or application
programmers.

05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 21

Transparency in Distributed Systems

Failure transparency: enables the concealment of faults,

allowing users and application programs to complete their tasks
despite the failure of hardware or software components.
Mobility transparency: allows the movement of resources and
clients within a system without affecting the operation of users
or programs.
Performance transparency: allows the system to be
reconfigured to improve performance as loads vary.
Scaling transparency: allows the system and applications to
expand in scale without change to the system structure or the
application algorithms.

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Transparency in Distributed
Systems
• The most important transparencies
are location and access transparency.

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 Transparency in a Distributed
System summarized
Transparency Description
Access Hide differences in data representation and how a resource is
accessed
Location Hide where a resource is 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 may be shared by several competitive
users
Concurrency Hide that a resource may be shared by several competitive
users
Failure Hide the failure and recovery of a resource
Persistence Hide whether a (software) resource is in memory or on disk

05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 24

 Scalability Problems
Concept Example

Centralized services A single server for all users

Centralized data A single on-line telephone book

Centralized algorithms Doing routing based on complete information

Examples of scalability limitations

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 Middleware: Goals
• Middleware handles heterogeneity
• Higher-level support
– Make distributed nature of application transparent to the
user/programmer
• Remote Procedure Calls
• RPC + Object orientation = CORBA
• Higher-level support BUT expose remote objects, partial
failure, etc. to the programmer
– JINI, Javaspaces
• Scalability

05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 26

 Communication Patterns
• Client-server
• Group-oriented/Peer-to-Peer
– Applications that require reliability, scalability
• Function-shipping/Mobile Code/Agents
– Postscript, Java

05/31/10 Aggrey M.O 27

 Distributed applications
• Applications that consist of a set of processes
that are distributed across a network of
machines and work together as an ensemble to
solve a common problem
• In the past, mostly “client-server”
– Resource management centralized at the server
• “Peer to Peer” computing represents a movement
towards more “truly” distributed applications

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 Clients invoke individual
servers

Client invocation invocation Server

result result
Server

Client
Key:
Process: Computer:

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A service provided by multiple
servers Service

Server
Client

Server

Client
Server

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 Web proxy server

Client Web
server
Proxy
server

Client Web
server

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A distributed application based
on peer processes Peer 2

Peer 1
Application

Application

Sharable Peer 3
objects
Application

Peer 4

Application

Peers 5 .... N

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 End
???

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