Distributed Computing

UNIT - I
1. Define distributed systems.
A distributed system is a piece of software that ensures
that:
A collection of independent computers that appears to its users as a single coherent
system or single system.
2. Give examples of distributed systems.
Financial trading
Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs)
Web search
Network of workstations
Automatic banking (teller machine) system
Automotive system (a distributed real-time system)
Distributed Real-Time Systems
Synchronization of physical clocks
Scheduling with hard time constraints
Real-time communication
Fault tolerance.
3. Write the following
(i)HTTP (ii) HTML (iii) URL
HTTP:
The HyperText Transfer Protocol defines the ways in which browsers and other types of
client interact with web servers.HTTP is a request-reply protocol. The client sends a request
message to the server containing the URL of the required resource. The
server looks up the path name and, if it exists, sends back the resources content in a
reply message to the client. Otherwise, it sends back an error response such as the
familiar 404 Not Found.

HTML:
The HyperText Markup Language is used to specify the text and images that make up the
contents of a web page, and to specify how they are laid out and formatted for presentation to the
user. A web page contains such structured items as headings, paragraphs, tables and images.
URL:
The purpose of a Uniform Resource Locator is to identify a resource.Browsers examine
URLs in order to access the corresponding resources. Sometimes the user types a URL into the
browser. More commonly, the browser looks up the corresponding URL when the user clicks on a
link or selects one of their bookmarks; or when the browser fetches a resource embedded in a
web page,such as an image.
For example, mailto:joe@anISP.net
identifies a users email address; ftp://ftp.downloadIt.com/software/aProg.exe identifies
a file that is to be retrieved using the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) rather than the more
commonly used protocol HTTP.

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4.What are the uses of web services?

A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the
Web (Internet).Web services are intrinsically integrated into the World Wide Web, using web
standards to represent and discover services. The World Wide Web consortium (W3C).
5.Define heterogeneity.
The Internet enables users to access services and run applications over a
heterogeneouscollection of computers and networks. Heterogeneity (that is, variety and
difference) applies to all of the following:
networks;
computer hardware;
operating systems;
programming languages;
implementations by different developers.
6.What are the characteristics of heterogeneity?
When event notifications are used as a means of communication, components in a
distributed system that were not designed to interoperate can be made to work together. All that is
required is that event-generating objects publish the types of events they offer, and that other
objects subscribe to patterns of events and provide an interface for receiving and dealing with the
resultant notifications. For example,publish-subscribe systems describes how to connect
heterogeneous components in the Internet.
7.What is the purpose of heterogeneity mobile code?
Several recently developed programming languages have been designed to enable
programs to be loaded into a process from a remote server and then executed locally. In that case,
the internal interfaces and objects within an executing process may be exposed to attack by
mobile code.
8. Why we need openness?
The openness of a computer system is the characteristic that determines whether the
system can be extended and reimplemented in various ways. The openness of distributed systems
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.
9. How we provide security?
Many of the information resources that are made available and maintained in distributed
systems have a high intrinsic value to their users. Their security is therefore of considerable
importance. Security for information resources has three components: confidentiality (protection
against disclosure to unauthorized individuals), integrity (protection against alteration or
corruption), and availability (protection against
interference with the means to access the resources).
10. Define scalability.
Distributed systems operate effectively and efficiently at many different scales, ranging
from a small intranet to the Internet. A system is described as scalable if it will remain effective

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when there is a significant increase in the number of resources and the number of users. The
number of computers and servers in the Internet has increased dramatically.
11. What are the types of transparencies?
Various transparencies types are as follows,
Access transparency
Location transparency
Concurrency transparency
Replication transparency
Failure transparency
Failure transparency
Performance transparency
Scaling transparency
12. Define transparencies.
Transparency is defined as the concealment from the user and the application
programmer of the separation of components in a distributed system, so that the system
is perceived as a whole rather than as a collection of independent components. The
implications of transparency are a major influence on the design of the system software.
13. Define System model.
The system under consideration contains a collection of processes, which can
communicate reliably over one-to-one channels. As before, processes may fail only by crashing.
system model includes a collection of processes pi ( i = 1, 2,.., N ) communicatingby message
passing. An important requirement that applies in many practical situations is for consensus to be
reached even in the presence of faults.
14. What is the architectural model?
Architectural models describe a system in terms of the computational and communication
tasks performed by its computational elements; the computational elements being individual
computers or aggregates of them supported by appropriate network interconnections. Clientserver and peer-to-peer are two of the most commonly used forms of architectural model for
distributed systems.
15. What is the fundamental model?
Fundamental models take an abstract perspective in order to describe solutions to
individual issues faced by most distributed systems.fundamental model should contain only the
essential ingredients that we need to consider in order to understand and reason about some
aspects of a systems behaviour. The purpose of such a model is:
To make explicit all the relevant assumptions about the systems we are modelling.

To make generalizations concerning what is possible or impossible, given those

assumptions. The generalizations may take the form of general-purpose algorithms or
desirable properties that are guaranteed. The guarantees are dependent on logical analysis
and, where appropriate, mathematical proof.
17. Define Middleware.
The term middleware applies to a software layer that provides a programming abstraction
as well as masking the heterogeneity of the underlying networks, hardware, operating systems
and programming languages.In addition to solving the problems of heterogeneity, middleware

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provides a uniform computational model for use by the programmers of servers and distributed
applications.
18. What are the different types of model?
Each typeof model is intended to provide an abstract, simplified but consistent
description of a relevant aspect of distributed system design:
Physical models are the most explicit way in which to describe a system; they
capture the hardware composition of a system in terms of the computers (and other
devices, such as mobile phones) and their interconnecting networks.
Architectural models describe a system in terms of the computational and
communication tasks performed by its computational elements; the computational
elements being individual computers or aggregates of them supported by appropriate
network interconnections.
Fundamental models take an abstract perspective in order to examine individual
aspects of a distributed system.
19. Which type of network can be used by distributed system?
The networks used in distributed systems are built from a variety of transmission media,
including wire, cable, fibre and wireless channels; hardware devices, including routers, switches,
bridges, hubs, repeaters and network interfaces; and software components , including protocol
stacks, communication handlers and drivers. The resulting functionality and performance
available to distributed system and application programs is affected by all of these.The computers
and other devices that use the network for communication purposes are referred to as hosts. The
term node is used to refer to any computer or switching device attached to a network.
20. What are the different types of network?
The main types of network that are used to support distributed systems: personal area
networks, local area networks, wide area networks, metropolitan area networks and the wireless
variants of them. Internetworks such as the Internet are constructed from networks of all these
types.
21. Define latency.
The delay between the start of a messages transmission from one process and the
beginning of its receipt by another is referred to as latency.
The latency includes:
The time taken for the first of a string of bits transmitted through a network to reach its
destination. For example, the latency for the transmission of a message through a satellite link is
the time for a radio signal to travel to the satellite and back.
The time taken by the operating system communication services at both the sending and
the receiving processes, which varies according to the current load on the operating
systems.
22. What is meant by networking?
Networking is the practice of linking two or more computing devices together for the
purpose of sharing data. Networks are built with a mix of computer hardware and computer
software. Where at least one process in one device is able to send/receive data to/from at least one
process residing in a remote device, then the two devices are said to be in a network.
23. What is meant by internetworking?
Internetworking is the practice of connecting a computer network with other networks
through the use of gateways that provide a common method of routing information packets

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between the networks. The resulting system of interconnected networks is called an internetwork,
or simply an internet.The most notable example of internetworking is the Internet.
24. What are the different types of switching are used in computer networking?
To transmit information between two arbitrary nodes, a switching system is required. Here we
define the four types of switching that are used in computer networking.
Broadcast Circuit
switching
Packet switching
Frame relay
26. Define protocol.
The term protocol is used to refer to a well-known set of rules and formats to be used for
communication between processes in order to perform a given task. The definition of a protocol
has two important parts to it:
a specification of the sequence of messages that must be exchanged;
a specification of the format of the data in the messages.
27. What is the function of router?
The function of a router is to manage the paths along which information is forwarded
within a network. They are necessary to facilitate communication between computers and the
Internet.
28. What is meant by internet protocol?
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical identification (logical address) that is
assigned to devices participating in a computer networkutilizing the Internet Protocol for
communication between its nodes.Although IP addresses are stored as binary numbers,they are
usually displayed in human-readable notations,such as 208.77.188.166 (for IPv4.
29. Define domain name.
The DNS translates Internet domain and host names to IP addresses. DNS automatically
converts the names we type in our Web browser address bar to the IP addresses of Web servers
hosting those sites. DNS implements a distributed database to store this name and address
information for all public hosts on the Internet. DNS assumes IP addresses do not change (are
statically assigned rather than dynamically assigned).
30. Define mobile IP.
The Mobile IP protocol allows location-independent routing of IP datagrams on the
Internet. Each mobile node is identified by its home address disregarding its current location in
the Internet. While away from its home network, a mobile node is associated with a care-of
address which identifies its current location and its home address is associated with the local
endpoint of a tunnel to its home agent. Mobile IP specifies how a mobile node registers with its
home agent and how the home agent routes datagrams to the mobile node through the tunnel.

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UNIT II
PART - A (2 marks)
1. What is meant by interprocess Communication?
Interprocess communication consists of transmitting a message between a socket
in one process and a socket in another process For a process to receive messages, its
socket must be bound to a local port and one of the Internet addresses of the computer on
which it runs. Messages sent to a particular Internet address and port number can be
received only by a process whose socket is associated with that Internet address and port
number.
2. What is the difference between RMI and RPC?
In RMI, a calling object can invoke a method in a potentially remote object. As
with RPC, the underlying details are generally hidden from the userRMI allows the
programmer to pass parameters not only by value, as input or output parameters, but also
by object referenceThe remote procedure call approach was a significant breakthrough in
distributed systems, providing higher-level support for programmers by extending the
concept of a procedure call to operate in a networked environment.
3.Define Datagram.
The term datagram refers to the similarity of this delivery mode to the way in
which letters and telegrams are delivered. The essential feature of datagram networks is
that the delivery of each packet is a one-shotprocess; no setup is required, and once the
packet is delivered the network retains no information about it.
4. What is the use of UDP?
For some applications, it is acceptable to use a service that is liable to occasional
omission failures. For example, the Domain Name System, which looks up DNS names
in the Internet, is implemented over UDP. Voice over IP (VOIP) also runs over UDP.
UDP datagrams are sometimes an attractive choice because they do not suffer from the
overheads associated with guaranteed message delivery.
5. What are the methods provides by datagram socket?
For a process to receive messages, its socket must be bound to a local port and
one of the Internet addresses of the computer on which it runs.Messages sent to a
particular Internet address and port number can be received only by a process whose
socket is associated with that Internet address and port number.Processes may use the
same socket for sending and receiving messages. Each computer has a large number
(216) of possible port numbers for use by local processes for receiving messages. Any
process may make use of multiple ports to receive messages, but a process cannot share
ports with other processes on the same computer.
6. What are the characteristic of network hidden by stream abstraction?
The following characteristics of the network are hidden by the stream
abstraction:
Message sizes
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Lost messages
Flow control
Message duplication and ordering
Message destinations
7. What is the use of remote object references?
When a client invokes a method in a remote object, an invocation message is sent
to the server process that hosts the remote object. This message needs to specify which
particular object is to have its method invoked. A remote object reference is an identifier
for a remote object that is valid throughout a distributed system. A remote object
reference is passed in the invocation message to specify which object is to be invoked.
8. What is meant by client server communication?
client-server communication, with a different (private) region between the server
and each of its local clients. Such a region contains one or more A (for argument) stacks
To support client-server communication, SOAP specifies how to use the HTTP POST
method for the request message and its response for the reply message. The combined use
of XML and HTTP provides a standard protocol for client-server communication over the
Internet.
9. What is meant by group communication?
Group communication is particularly useful for achieving fault tolerance,which
describes techniques for high availability, including disconnected operation. It includes
case studies of the gossip architecture, Bayou and the Coda file system. It also examines
how to support transactions on replicated data.
10. What is the use of RMI registry?
The RMIregistry is the binder for Java RMI. An instance of RMIregistry should
normally run on every server computer that hosts remote objects. It maintains a table
mapping textual, URL-style names to references to remote objects hosted on that
computer. It is accessed by methods of the Naming class, whose methods take as an
argument a URL-formatted string of the form:
//computerName:port/objectName
where computerName and port refer to the location of the RMIregistry.
11. What is meant by distributed garbage collection?
An object is considered to be garbage if there are no longer any references to it
anywhere in the distributed system. The memory taken up by that object can be reclaimed
once it is known to be garbage. To check that an object is garbage, we must verify that
there are no references to it anywhere in the system.
For example process p1 has two objects that both have references one has a
reference within p1 itself, and p2 has a reference to the other. Process p2 has one garbage
object, with no references to it anywhere in the system. It also has an object for which
neither p1 nor p2 has a reference, but there is a reference to it in a message that is in
transit between the processes.

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12. Explain the use of Reflection in RMI?

Reflection is a pattern that is increasingly being used in distributed systems as a
means of supporting both introspection (the dynamic discovery of properties of the
system) and intercession (the ability to dynamically modify structure or behaviour). For
example, the introspection capabilities of Java are used effectively in the implementation
of RMI to provide generic dispatching.
13. Define Name spaces.
A name space is the collection of all valid names recognized by a particular
service. The service will attempt to look up a valid name, even though that name may
prove not to correspond to any object i.e., to be unbound. Name spaces require a
syntactic definition to separate valid names from invalid names. For example, ... is not
acceptable as the DNS name of a computer, whereas www.cdk99.net is valid (even though
it is unbound).

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UNIT-III
PART - A (2 marks)
1.What are core OS Components?
The core OS components and their responsibilities are:
Process manager
Thread manager
Communication manager
Memory manager
Supervisor
2. What is meant by cluster?
3. Define Thread.
4. What is meant by address space?
5. What is meant by invocation performance?
6. Difference between monolithic and micro kernels
7. What is meant by cryptography?
8. What is the use of cryptography?
9. What is meant by distributed file system?
10. What are the different types of distributed file system available?
11. Define metadata.

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