Introduction to Distributed Systems

Material adapted from Distributed Systems: Concepts & Design, George Coulouris, et al. and Engineering Distributed Objects, Wolfgang Emmerich

Outline

What is a Distributed System? Examples of Distributed Systems Distributed System Requirements Transparency in Distributed System

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

What is a Distributed System?

What is a Distributed System?

A system in which hardware or software components located at networked computers communicate and coordinate their actions only by passing messages. (Coulouris) A distributed system is a collection of autonomous hosts that that are connected through a computer network. Each host executes components and operates a distribution middleware, which enables the components to coordinate their activities in such a way that users perceive the system as a single, integrated computing facility. (Emmerich)

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

What is a Distributed System?

Host2

Hostn-1

Host1 Network

Component1 Componentn Middleware Network Operating System Hardware

Hostn

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

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

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

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

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Key Terms

Resources things shared in a distributed system hardware (disks, printers) software (files, databases, data objects) Server program or process that performs services in response to requests from other processes. Client process that makes requests of a server by invoking an operation. Remote Invocation complete send and response sequence Servers & Clients are software processes

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Examples of Distributed Systems

Boeing 777 Configuration Management

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Problems to be solved

Scale 3,000,000 parts per aircraft Configuration of every aircraft is different CAA regulations demand that records are kept for every single part of aircraft Aircraft evolve during maintenance Boeing produce 500 aircraft per year Configuration database grows by 1.5 billion parts each year Projected life of each aircraft 30 years 45,000 engineers need on-line access to engineering data

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Problems to be solved (contd)

COTS Integration Existing IT infrastructure was no longer appropriate Boeing could not afford to build required IT infrastructure from scratch Components were purchased from several different specialized vendors

relational database technology enterprise resource planning computer aided project planning

Components needed to be integrated

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Problems to be solved (contd)

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Why distributed object technology

Object wrapping of COTS Resolution of distribution at high level of abstraction Resolution of heterogeneity Scalability

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Distributed System Requirements

Requirements

Integration of new, legacy and components off-the-shelf Legacy components might not need to be re-engineered COTS cannot be modified Heterogeneity of hardware platforms operating systems networks programming languages Construction of distributed systems

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Common Requirements/Challenges

What are we trying to achieve when we construct a distributed system? Certain requirements are common to many distributed systems Heterogeneity Resource Sharing Openness Security Concurrency Scalability Fault Tolerance Transparency

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Resource Sharing

Ability to use any hardware, software or data anywhere in the system. Resource manager controls access, provides naming scheme and controls concurrency. Resource sharing model (e.g. client/ server or objectbased) describing how resources are provided, they are used and provider and user interact with each other.

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

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.

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

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. Lost updates Inconsistent analysis

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

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

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Scalability

Adoption 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!

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Transparency in Distributed Systems

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 dimensions that represent various properties distributed systems should have.

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Distribution Transparency
Scalability Transparency Migration Transparency Access Transparency Performance Transparency Replication Transparency Location Transparency Failure Transparency Concurrency Transparency

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Access Transparency

Enables local and remote information objects to be accessed using identical operations. Example: File system operations in NFS. Example: Navigation in the Web. Example: SQL Queries

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Location Transparency

Enables information objects to be accessed without knowledge of their location. Example: File system operations in NFS Example: Pages in the Web Example: Tables in distributed databases

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Concurrency Transparency

Enables several processes to operate concurrently using shared information objects without interference between them. Example: NFS Example: Automatic teller machine network Example: Database management system

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Replication Transparency

Enables multiple instances of information objects to be used to increase reliability and performance without knowledge of the replicas by users or application programs Example: Distributed DBMS Example: Mirroring Web Pages.

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Failure Transparency

Enables the concealment of faults Allows users and applications to complete their tasks despite the failure of other components. Example: Database Management System

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Migration Transparency

Allows the movement of information objects within a system without affecting the operations of users or application programs Example: NFS Example: Web Pages

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Performance Transparency

Allows the system to be reconfigured to improve performance as loads vary. Example: Distributed make.

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Scaling Transparency

Allows the system and applications to expand in scale without change to the system structure or the application algorithms. Example: World-Wide-Web Example: Distributed Database

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Distribution Transparency
Scalability Transparency Migration Transparency Access Transparency Performance Transparency Replication Transparency Location Transparency Failure Transparency Concurrency Transparency

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Two Views of Transparency

The system should hide its distributed nature, programs running on a multiple-computer system appear no different from a single-computer system. The system should not hide its distributed nature. The programs are aware of the multiple computers in the system. When designing distributed applications we need to favor the second view.
(see: A Note on Distributed Computing, Jim Waldo, et al.)

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems

Key Points

What is a Distributed System Adoption of Distributed Systems is driven by NonFunctional Requirements Distribution needs to be transparent to users and application designers Transparency has several dimensions Transparency dimensions depend on each other

SE442 - Principles of Distributed Software Systems