Slides for Chapter 1

Characterization of Distributed Systems

From Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair

Distributed Systems:
Concepts and Design
Edition 5, © Addison-Wesley 2012
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1.1 Introduction

Distributed system is one in which hardware and

software components located at networked
computers communicate and coordinate their actions
only by passing message.
Characteristics:
- Concurrency
- No global clock
- Independent failures

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Figure 1.1 (see book for the full text)
Selected application domains and associated networked applications

Finance and commerce eCommerce e.g. Amazon and eBay, PayPal,

online banking and trading
The information society Web information and search engines, ebooks,
Wikipedia; social networking: Facebook and MySpace.
Creative industries and online gaming, music and film in the home, user-
entertainment generated content, e.g. YouTube, Flickr
Healthcare health informatics, on online patient records,
monitoring patients
Education e-learning, virtual learning environments;
distance learning
Transport and logistics GPS in route finding systems, map services:
Google Maps, Google Earth
Science The Grid as an enabling technology for
collaboration between scientists
Environmental management sensor technology to monitor earthquakes,
floods or tsunamis
Instructor’s Guide for Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design Edn. 5
© Pearson Education 2012
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Specific examples of distributed systems

1.2.1 Web search (page.5)

1.2.2 Massively multilayer online games (MMOGs)
1.2.3 Financial trading

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Figure 1.2
An example financial trading system

Instructor’s Guide for Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design Edn. 5
© Pearson Education 2012
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1.3 Trends in distributed systems

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Figure 1.3
A typical portion of the Internet

intranet ☎
☎
☎ ISP

backbone

satellite link

desktop computer:
server:
network link:

Instructor’s Guide for Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design Edn. 5
© Pearson Education 2012
Figure 1.4
Portable and handheld devices in a distributed system

Instructor’s Guide for Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design Edn. 5
© Pearson Education 2012
Figure 1.5
Cloud computing

Instructor’s Guide for Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design Edn. 5
© Pearson Education 2012
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1.4 Focus on resource sharing

Share hardware resources:

. printer, disks
. files, database, a set of web pages
. search engine, currency converter
Services (It refers to a running program (a process) on a networked
computer that accepts requests from programs running on other
computers to perform a service and responds appropriately )

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1.5 Challenges

1.5.1 Heterogeneity
1.5.2 Openness
1.5.3 Security
1.5.4 Scalability
1.5.5 Failure handling
1.5.6 Concurrency
1.5.7 Transparency
1.5.8 Quality of Service (QoS)

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Figure 1.6
Growth of the Internet (computers and web servers)

2010? 2015? 2023?

Date Computers Web servers Percentage

1993, July 1,776,000 130 0.008

1995, July 6,642,000 23,500 0.4
1997, July 19,540,000 1,203,096 6
1999, July 56,218,000 6,598,697 12
2001, July 125,888,197 31,299,592 25
2003, July ~200,000,000 42,298,371 21
2005, July 353,284,187 67,571,581 19

Instructor’s Guide for Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design Edn. 5
© Pearson Education 2012
Section 1.5.7
Transparencies

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.
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.

Instructor’s Guide for Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design Edn. 5
© Pearson Education 2012
Figure 1.7
Web servers and web browsers

Web servers Browsers

http://www.google.comlsearch?q=obama
www.google.com

www.cdk5.net Internet
http://www.cdk5.net/

www.w3c.org

File system of http://www.w3.org/standards/faq.html#conformance

www.w3c.org standards

faq.html

Instructor’s Guide for Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg and Blair, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design Edn. 5
© Pearson Education 2012
Exercise

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