CHAPTER THREE:DISTRIBUTED
SYSTEM MODELS
Reference: Chapter Two:
Coulouris, G., Dollimore, J., Kindberg, T., Blair,
G., Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design,
5th Edition, Addison Wesley, 2011
Outline
• The three basic ways to describe Distributed systems? –
1. Physical models
consider DS in terms of hardware – computers and devices that
constitute a system and their interconnectivity, without details of
specific technologies
2. Architectural models
describe a system in terms of the computational and communication
tasks performed by its computational elements.
Client-server and
peer-to-peer most commonly used
3. Fundamental models
take an abstract perspective in order to describe solutions to individual
issues faced by most distributed systems
interaction models
failure models
security models
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Outline
Difficulties and threats for distributed systems:
Widely varying modes of use
Wide range of system environments
Internal problems
External threats
1.Baseline Physical models
• minimal physical model of a distributed system as an extensible set of
computer nodes interconnected by a computer network for the required
passing of messages.
Three generations of distributed systems
a) Early distributed systems
10 and 100 nodes interconnected by a local area network
limited Internet connectivity
supported a small range of services e.g.
shared local printers
file servers
email
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3.1) Physical models cont…
Three generations of distributed systems Cont…..
b) Internet-scale distributed systems
extensible set of nodes interconnected by a network of
networks (the Internet)
c) Contemporary DS with hundreds of thousands nodes
+ emergence of:
i. mobile computing
laptops or smart phones may move from location to location – need
for added capabilities (service discovery; support for spontaneous
interoperation)
ii. ubiquitous computing
computers are embedded everywhere…IoTs
iii. cloud computing
pools of nodes that together provide a given service
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3.1) Physical models cont…
Three generations of distributed systems Cont…..
d) Distributed systems of systems (ultra-large-scale
(ULS) distributed systems)
significant challenges associated with contemporary DS
Generations of distributed systems
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3.2. Architectural Models
3.2: Architectural Models
Major concerns:
make the system reliable, manageable, adaptable and cost effective
3.2.1 Architectural elements
• What are the entities that are communicating in the distributed
system?
• How do they communicate, or, more specifically, what
communication paradigm is used?
• What (potentially changing) roles and responsibilities
– do they have in the overall architecture?
• How are they mapped on to the physical distributed infrastructure
– what is their placement?
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Communicating entities
1. From system perspective: processes
in some cases we can say that:
1) nodes (sensors)
2) threads (endpoints of communication)
2. From programming perspective
a) Objects
computation consists of a number of interacting objects representing natural units of decomposition
for the given problem domain
Objects are accessed via interfaces,
with an associated interface definition language (IDL)
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Communicating entities
b) components – emerged due to some weaknesses with distributed objects
offer problem-oriented abstractions for building distributed systems
accessed through interfaces
assumptions to components/interfaces that must be present (i.e.
making all dependencies explicit and providing a more complete
contract for system construction.)
c) web services
closely related to objects and components
intrinsically integrated into the World Wide Web
using web standards to represent and discover services
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Communicating entities
c) web services
The World Wide Web consortium (W3C):
Web service is a software application identified by a URI, whose
interfaces and bindings are capable of being defined, described
and discovered as XML artefacts. A Web service supports direct
interactions with other software agents using XML-based
message exchanges via Internet-based protocols.
objects and components are often used within an
organization to develop tightly coupled applications
web services are generally viewed as complete services in
their own right
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Communicating paradigms
What is:
a) Interprocess communication?
b) Remote invocation?
c) Indirect communication?
a) Interprocess communication
low-level support for communication between processes in distributed
systems, including:
i. message-passing primitives,
ii. direct access to the API offered by Internet protocols (socket
programming) and
iii. support for multicast communication
Remote invocation – calling of a remote operation, procedure or method
Request-reply protocols – a pattern with message-passing service to
support client-server computing
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Communicating paradigms
a) Remote procedure call (RPC)
• procedures in processes on remote computers can be called as
if they are procedures in the local address space
• supports client-server computing with servers offering a set
of operations through a service interface and clients calling
these operations directly as if they were available locally
What type of transparency do RPC systems offer?
RPC systems offer (at a minimum) access and location transparency
b) Remote method invocation (RMI)
• strongly resemble RPC but in a world of distributed objects
• tighter integration into object-orientation framework
In RPC and RMI –
senders-receivers of messages
– coexist at the same time
– are aware of each other’s identities
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Communicating paradigms
c) Indirect communication
• Senders do not need to know who they are sending to (space uncoupling)
• Senders and receivers do not need to exist at the same time (time uncoupling)
Key techniques in indirect communication:
i. Group communication
ii. Publish-subscribe systems
(sometimes also called distributed event-based systems)
publishers distribute information items of interest (events) to a
similarly large number of consumers (or subscribers)
iii. Message queues:
• (publish-subscribe systems offer a one-to-many style of
communication), message queues offer a point-to-point service
producer processes can send messages to a specified queue
consumer processes can
receive messages from the queue or
be notified
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Communicating paradigms
c) Indirect communication cont….
iv) Tuple spaces (also known as generative communication):
• processes can place arbitrary items of structured data, called
tuples, in a persistent tuple space
other processes can either read or remove such tuples from
the tuple space by specifying patterns of interest
readers and writers do not need to exist at the same time
(Since the tuple space is persistent)
v) Distributed shared memory (DSM):
• abstraction for sharing data between processes that do not share
physical memory
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Communication entities and communication paradigms
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
3.2.1 Roles and responsibilities
a) Client-server
Clients invoke individual servers
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Roles and responibilities
b) Peer-to-peer :- same set of interfaces to each other
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Placement
• crucial in terms of determining the DS properties:
performance
Reliability
security
• Possible placement strategies:
mapping of services to multiple servers
mapping distributed objects between servers, or
replicating copies on several hosts
more closely coupled multiple-servers – cluster
b A service provided by multiple servers
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
caching
- A cache is a store of recently used data objects that is closer to one client or a particular set of
clients than the objects themselves
b A service provided by multiple servers
Web proxy server
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
• mobile agents
- running program (including both code and data) that travels from one computer to another in a network carrying out a task on someone’s behalf (e.g.
collecting information), and eventually returning with the results.
- could be used for
software maintenance--- Software Updates…etc
collecting information from different vendors’ databases of prices--fishing codes in many sites
– Possible security threats with mobile code and mobile agents...
b A service provided by multiple servers
Web Applets
– yet another possibility – push model: server initiates interaction (e.g. on information updates on it)
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
mobile code Cont…
– Applets are an example of mobile code
b A service provided by multiple servers
Web Applets
– yet another possibility – push model: server initiates interaction (e.g. on information updates on it)
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
3.2.2 Architectural patterns
- Layering…..partition complex system….eg. Back-end, front end
Layered approach – complex system partitioned into a number of layers:
vertical organization of services
given layer making use of the services offered by the layer below
software abstraction
higher layers unaware of implementation details, or any other layers beneath them
b A service provided by multiple servers
Web Applets
– yet another possibility – push model: server initiates interaction (e.g. on information updates on it)
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Platform and Middleware
Software and hardware service layers in distributed systems
Fig . Software and hardware service layers in distributed systems
- Middleware – a layer of software whose purpose is to mask heterogeneity and to provide a convenient programming model to application programmers.
- A platform for distributed systems and applications consists of the lowest-level hardware and software layers.
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Tiered architecture
- Tiering is a technique to organize functionality of a given layer and place this functionality into appropriate servers and, as a
secondary consideration, on to physical nodes
Example: two-tier and three-tier architecture
- functional decomposition of a given application, as follows:
presentation logic
application logic
data logic
Fig . Software and hardware service layers in distributed systems
A platform for distributed systems and applications consists of the lowest-level hardware and software layers.
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Tiered architecture
Two-tier and three-tier architectures
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Tiered architecture
a) Two-tier and
three aspects partitioned into two
processes
(+) low latency
(-) splitting application logic
b) three-tier architectures
(+) one-to-one mapping from logical elements to physical servers
(-) added complexity, network traffic and latency
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) – a way to create interactive, partially/selectively-updatable webpages
extension to the standard client-server style of interaction in WWW
Javascript forntend and server-based backend
new Ajax . Request ( ’ Grades. php?Year=Sem: one ’ ,
{ onSuccess : updateGrades }) ;
function updateGrades ( request ) {
.....
( request contains thes tate of the Ajax r equest including the returned result .
The result is parsed to obtain some text giving the score , which is used
to update the relevant portion of the current page . )
.....
}
AJAX example: grade score updates
(two-tier architecture) two-tier or three-tier a
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Thin clients
enabling access to sophisticated networked services (e.g. cloud services) with few assumptions to client device
software layer that supports a window-based user interface (local) for executing remote application programs or accessing
services on remote computer
Thin clients and computer servers
Concept led to Virtual Network Computing (VNC) – VNC clients accessing VNC servers using VNC protocol
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Other commonly occurring patterns
• proxy pattern
designed to support location transparency in RPC or RMI
proxy created in local address space, with same interface as the remote object
• brokerage in web services
supporting interoperability in potentially complex distributed infrastructure
service provider, service requestor and service broker
brokerage reflected e.g. in registry in Java RMI and naming service in CORBA
Thin clients and computer servers
Concept led to Virtual Network Computing (VNC) – VNC clients accessing VNC servers using VNC protocol
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
The web service architectural pattern
• Reflection pattern
a means of supporting both:
introspection (the dynamic discovery of properties of the system) :->dynamically discover interface offered by a given object
intercession (the ability to dynamically modify structure or behaviour):--discover and adapt the underlying architecture of the system
used e.g. in Java RMI for generic dispatching
ability to intercept incoming messages or invocations
Thin clients and computer servers
Concept led to Virtual Network Computing (VNC) – VNC clients accessing VNC servers using VNC protocol
i) Peer-to-peer architecture
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
3.2.3 Associated middleware solutions
The task of middleware is to provide a higher-level
programming abstraction:
what is the task of middleware?
development of distributed systems and, through layering,
to abstract over heterogeneity in the underlying
infrastructure to promote interoperability and portability
Categories of middleware
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Categories of middleware
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3.2 Architectural Models Cont…
Limitations of middleware
- Some communication-related functions can be completely and
reliably implemented only with the knowledge and help of the application
standing at the end points of the communication system.
Example:
- e-mail transfer need another layer of fault- tolerance
that even TCP cannot offer
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3.3 Fundamental models
3.3 Fundamental models
What is:
Interaction model?
Failure model?
Security model?
2.4.1 Interaction model
processes interact by passing messages –
communication (information flow) and
coordination (synchronization and ordering of activities) between processes
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3.3 Fundamental models
3.3.1 Interaction model cont…
communication takes place with delays of considerable duration thus;-
accuracy with which independent processes can be coordinated is limited by these delays
and by difficulty of maintaining the same notion of time across all the computers in a
distributed system
Behaviour and state of DS can be described by a distributed algorithm:
steps to be taken by each interacting process
transmission of messages between them
State belonging to each process is completely private
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Performance of communication channels
latency –
how to define latency? delay between the start of message’s transmission from one process and the
beginning of receipt by another
bandwidth – how to define bandwidth? of a computer network – the total amount of information that
can be transmitted over it in a given time
Jitter -
What is jitter? – the variation in the time taken to deliver a series of messages
Computer clocks and timing events
clock drift rate
what is clock drift rate?
rate at which a computer clock deviates from a perfect reference clock
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3.3 Fundamental models
Two variants of the interaction model
a) Synchronous distributed systems:
The time to execute each step of a process has known lower and upper bounds
Each message transmitted over a channel is received within a known bounded time
Each process has a local clock whose drift rate from real time has
a known bound
b) Asynchronous distributed systems:
No bounds on:
Process execution speeds
Message transmission delays
Clock drift rates
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3.3 Fundamental models
Event ordering
Figure : Real-time ordering of events
a) Asynchronous distributed systems:
No bounds on:
Logical time – based on event ordering
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3.3 Fundamental models
3.3.2 Failure model
faults occur in:
any of the computers (including software faults)
or in the network
Failure model defines and classifies the faults
Omission failures
process or communication channel fails to perform actions it is supposed to do
Process omission failures
chief omission failure of a process is to crash
crash is called fail-stop if other processes can detect certainly that the process has crashed
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3.3 Fundamental models
3.3.2 Failure model cont…
Communication omission failures
communication channel does not transport a message from p’ss outgoing message buffer to q’s incoming message buffer
– known as dropping messages
i. send-omission failures
ii. receive-omission failures
iii. channel-omission failures
Figure Processes and channels
All failures so far: benigh failures
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3.3 Fundamental models
3.3.2 Failure model cont…
Arbitrary failures
- arbitrary or Byzantine failure is used to describe the worst possible failure semantics, in which any type of error
may occur
Figure Omission and arbitrary failures
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3.3.2 Failure model cont…
Timing failures
• applicable in synchronous distributed systems
Figure: Timing failures
Masking failures
knowledge of the failure can enable a new service to be designed to mask the failure of the components on which it depends
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3.3 Fundamental models
Reliability of one-to-one communication
reliable communication:
i) Validity:
What is validity?
Any message in the outgoing message buffer is eventually delivered to the incoming message buffer
ii) Integrity:
What is integrity?
The message received is identical to one sent, and no messages are delivered twice
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3.3.3 Security model
modular nature of distributed systems and their openness exposes them to attack by
both external and internal agents
Security model defines and classifies attack forms,
providing a basis for the analysis of threats
basis for design of systems that are able to resist them
the security of a distributed system can be achieved by :-
i. securing the processes and the channels used for their interactions and
ii.by protecting the objects that they encapsulate against unauthorized access.
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3.3 Fundamental models
Protecting objects
Users with access rights
association of each invocation and each result with the authority on which it is issued
such an authority is called a principal
principal may be a user or a process
Figure Objects and principals
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3.3 Fundamental models
Securing processes and their interactions
securing communications over open channels
open service interfaces
The enemy or also: adversary
Figure :The enemy
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3.3 Fundamental models
a)Threats to processes
lack of knowledge of true source of a message
problem both to server and client side
example: spoofing a mail server
b)Threats to communication channels
threat to the privacy and integrity of messages
can be defeated using
Defeating security threats
a) Cryptography and shared secrets
Cryptography is the science of keeping messages secure
Encryption is the process of scrambling a message in such a way as to hide its contents
b) Authentication
based on shared secrets authentication of messages – proving the identities supplied by their senders
Figure :The enemy
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3.3 Fundamental models
Secure channels
Figure : Secure channels
Properties of a secure channel:
i. Each of the processes knows reliably the identity of the principal on whose behalf the other process is executing
ii. A secure channel ensures the privacy and integrity (protection against tampering) of the data transmitted across it
iii.Each message includes a physical or logical timestamp to prevent messages from being replayed or reordered
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Other possible threats from an enemy
c) Denial of service:
the enemy interferes with the activities of authorized users by making excessive and pointless invocations on services or message
transmissions in a network, resulting in overloading of physical resources (network bandwidth, server processing capacity)
d) Mobile code:
execution of program code from elsewhere, such as the email attachment etc
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3.3 Fundamental models
The uses of security models
-> security analysis involves :-> the construction of a threat model:
listing all the forms of attack to which the system is exposed
an evaluation of the risks and consequences of each
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The END
Q&A
THANKS
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ndungu
