QUESTION BANK SUB :- DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM (TCS-801)

UNIT-I

1. Name two advantages and disadvantages of distributed systems over centralized ones. 2. What is the difference between a multiprocessor and a multicomputer? 3. The terms loosely-coupled system and tightly-coupled system are often used to describe distributed computer systems. What is the difference between them? 4. What are distributed systems? What are limitations of distributed system? 5. Explain with an example, what would be the impact of absence of global clock and shared memory. 6. What are the fundamental issues in resource management in distributed system? 7. Explain the difference between data migration, computation migration and distributed scheduling. 8. What are Lamport's Logical Clocks? List the important conditions to be satisfied by Lamport logical clocks. If A and B represent two distinct events in a process and if A?B, then C(A) < C(B) but vice versa is not true. Explain the reasons. 9. What do you mean by Causal Ordering of message? If process P sends two messages M1 and M2 to another process Q, what problem may arise if the two messages are not received by recipient Q in the order they were sent by process P? 10. What are Vector clocks ? What are the advantages of Vector clock over Lamport clock? 11. What do you mean by distributed mutual exclusion? A simple solution to this problem may be obtained by having a designated site called control site which receives all requests and grants permission to execute critical section.

12. Discuss the limitations for the above approach. Discuss any protocol, which uses the time stamp to order critical section request and resolve conflict in simultaneous request for critical section execution. 13. Write short note on : Global knowledge Naming Scalability Compatibility Process synchronization Resource management Security 14. Explain virtual time and the vector clocks. 15. Differentiate global state and local state. 16. Explain characteristics of a distributed system and its examples. 17. Explain different types of fundamental models. 18. Give the difference between distributed operating system and network operating system. 19. How we measure the performance of mutual exclusion algorithm? 20. Explain the token and non token based algorithm? 21. Give five types of hardware resource and five types of data or software resource that can be shared. Give example of their sharing as it occurs in distributed systems. 22. Why is computer clock synchronization necessary? Describe the design requirement for a system to synchronize the clocks in a distributed system? 23. Give an example execution of the ring-based algorithm to show that processes are not necessarily granted entry to critical section in happened before order. 24. Explain the bully algorithm.

UNIT-II

25. What is the problem of distributed deadlock detection? 26. What are the differences in Centralized, Distributed and Hierarchical control organizations for distributed deadlock detection? 27. What are the advantages of distributed control organization over centralized control organization for distributed deadlock detection? 28. What are phantom deadlocks? Explain the algorithm which could detect phantom deadlocks? 29. Construct a solution to reliable, totally ordered multicast in a synchronous system, using a reliable multicast and a solution to the consensus problem. 30. What are Agreement Protocols? What are agreement and validity objectives of Byzantine Agreement problems? 31. "An approach to concurrency control based on time-stamping is inherently superior to an approach based on locking". Give arguments either in favor of or against the statement. 32. Explain why time-stamping cannot lead to deadlock and why locking can 33. What are the shortcomings of Ho Ramamoorthys Two Phase algorithm for deadlock detection? How does One Phase algorithm remove the possibility of false deadlock detection? 34. Discuss the deadlock avoidance approach. 35. Discuss the system model of the deadlock detection. 36. Differentiate between resource vs communication deadlocks. 37. Show that Byzantine agreement can not always be reached among four processor if two processor are faulty. 38. Show how a solution to the consensus problem can be used to solve the interactive consistency problem. 39. Discuss the following distributed deadlock detection algorithms Path pushing algorithm Edge chasing algorithm 40. Discuss the applications of agreement algo.

UNIT-III

41. Caching is one of the techniques used to improve access to naming data. What are the benefits of caching, and what assumptions must hold for it to be useful? Comment on the likelihood of these assumptions being true in any system you care to choose. 42. Explain why a measure of reliability based on a simple percentage of the time that a node is up may be inadequate in general. 43. Briefly define the terms secret key cryptography and public key cryptography, explaining the important characteristics of each. 44. Explain distributed file system and mechanism of building distributed file system. 45. Discuss distributed shared memory concept and algorithm for implementing distributed shared memory. 46. Write short notes on : Memory coherence Name resolution Bulk data transfer Hints Caching 47. Differentiate weak consistency with release consistency. 48. Explain coherence protocol. 49. What do you mean by distributed scheduling? 50. What do you mean by distributed objects? Explain the concept of remote

method invocation with a suitable example. 51. How are the parameters and results passed to a remote procedure? Explain with a suitable example. 52. What are cryptographic systems? Give a general model of a cryptographic system listing its objectives. 53. What are Public and Private keys? List the key differences and issues in public key cryptography and private key cryptography. 54. What are the goals of distributed file system? 55. What are the different mechanisms for building distributed file systems? 56. Explain the salient features of Mounting and Caching process. 57. What do you mean by the distributed object model? Write short note on RMI. 58. What do you mean by Digital Signature? Explain the different methods for generating and verifying signatures. 59. What is the difference between a file service using the upload/download model and one using the remote access model? 60. What is the difference between tree structured directory system from a general graph structured system?

UNIT-IV

61. Describe how a non-recoverable situation could arise if write locks are released after the last operation of a transaction but before its commitment. 62. What are the advantages and drawbacks of multiversion timestamp ordering in comparision with the ordering timestamp ordering. 63. Explain the difference between linearizability and sequential consistency, and why the latter is more practical to implement, in general? 64. What are Distributed Databases? 65. What are the advantages of data distribution and data replication? 66. Explain the difference between Horizontal and Vertical Fragmentations. If data object replicas are stored at multiple number of sites, explain how the lock will be acquired by a transaction on the data object. 67. What are locks? What are the essential differences in the Lock-based protocols and Time Stamp-based protocols? 68. What are commit protocols? Explain how Two-phase commit protocol responds to failure of participating site and failure of coordinator.

69. Explain remote procedure calls and the basic use of remote procedure calls. 70. Explain remote method invocation. 71. Explain about various types of security techniques.

72. Differentiate between sun network file system and Andrew file system.

UNIT-V

73. What are the differences in centralized and distributed algorithms? How is the performance of a distributed algorithm evaluated? 74. Explain the term, message complexity in reference to distributed algorithm. 75. What is routing? Discuss the correctness, complexity, efficiency and robustness criteria of a good routing algorithm. 76. What is destination-based routing? 77. What are Wave and Traversal algorithms? 78. Explain the termination, decision and dependence requirements of a wave algorithm. 79.What types of failure can there be in a simple bidirectional client-server interaction and what action is appropriate for each form of failure? 80. Explain balanced sliding window protocol. 81. What is election algo? Suppose that two processes detect the demise of the coordinator simultaneously and both decide to hold an election using the bully algo. What happens? 82. Write short notes on : ARP problem Deadlock free packet switching 83. Differentiate the bully election algo and ring election algo 84. Write short note on CORBA services.