EXAMPLES OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

October 27 2011

NAME: AKINTUNDE EBENEZER BENSON IDAHOSA UNIVERSITY FACULTY: BASIC AND APPLIED SCIENCE DEPARTMENT: COMPUTER SCIENCE MAT. NUMBER: BAS/CSC/080031 COURSE NAME: DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING COURSE CODE: CSC 411

What is distributed computing?

Distributed computing refers to the use of distributed systems to solve computational problems. In distributed computing, a problem is divided into many tasks, each of which is solved by one or more computers. A distributed computer system consists of multiple software components that are on multiple computers, but run as a single system. The computers that are in a distributed system can be physically close together and connected by a local network, or they can be geographically distant and connected by a wide area network. A distributed system can consist of any number of possible configurations, such as mainframes, personal computers, workstations, minicomputers, and so on. The goal of distributed computing is to make such a network work as a single computer.

Distributed Systems

(a) (b) A distributed system. (c) A parallel system. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal. A computer program that runs in a distributed system is called a distributed program, and distributed programming is the process of writing such programs. Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. Distributed systems offer many benefits over centralized systems, including the following:

Scalability The system can easily be expanded by adding more machines as needed. Redundancy Several machines can provide the same services, so if one is unavailable, work does not stop. Additionally, because many smaller machines can be used, this redundancy does not need to be prohibitively expensive. Distributed computing systems can run on hardware that is provided by many vendors, and can use a variety of standards-based software components. Such systems are independent of the underlying software. They can run on various operating systems, and can use various communications protocols. Some hardware might use UNIX(R) as the operating system, while other hardware might use Windows operating systems.

Applications Of Distributed systems

There are two main reasons for using distributed systems and distributed computing. First, the very nature of the application may require the use of a communication network that connects several computers. For example, data is produced in one physical location and it is needed in another location. Second, there are many cases in which the use of a single computer would be possible in principle, but the use of a distributed system is beneficial for practical reasons.

For example, it may be more cost-efficient to obtain the desired level of performance by using a cluster of several low-end computers, in comparison with a single high-end computer. A distributed system can be more reliable than a non-distributed system, as there is no single point of failure. Moreover, a distributed system may be easier to expand and manage than a monolithic uniprocessor system.

EXAMPLES OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Network applications:  World Wide Web and peer-to-peer networks.  Massively multiplayer online games and virtual reality communities.  Distributed databases and distributed database management systems.  Networks file systems.  Distributed information processing systems such as banking systems and airline reservation systems. Real-time process control:  Aircraft control systems.  Industrial control systems  Automated teller machine

Network applications: World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (abbreviated as WWW or W3, and commonly known as the Web) is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them via hyperlinks. Using concepts from earlier hypertext systems, British engineer and computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, now Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), wrote a proposal in March 1989 for what would eventually become the World Wide Web. At CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, Berners-Lee and Belgian computer scientist Robert Cailliau proposed in 1990 to use hypertext "... to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will", and they publicly introduced the project in December. "The World-Wide Web was developed to be a pool of human knowledge, and human culture, which would allow collaborators in remote sites to share their ideas and all aspects of a common project. Function: The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used in every-day speech without much distinction. However, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not one and the same. The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks. In contrast, the Web is one of the services that runs on the Internet. It is a collection of textual documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and

URLs, transmitted by web browsers and web servers. In short, the Web can be thought of as an application "running" on the Internet. Viewing a web page on the World Wide Web normally begins either by typing the URL of the page into a web browser, or by following a hyperlink to that page or resource. The web browser then initiates a series of communication messages, behind the scenes, in order to fetch and display it. As an example, consider the Wikipedia page for this article with the URL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web. First, the browser resolves the server-name portion of the URL (en.wikipedia.org) into an Internet Protocol address using the globally distributed database known as the Domain Name System (DNS); this lookup returns an IP address such as 208.80.152.2. The browser then requests the resource by sending an HTTP request across the Internet to the computer at that particular address. It makes the request to a particular application port in the underlying Internet Protocol Suite so that the computer receiving the request can distinguish an HTTP request from other network protocols it may be servicing such as e-mail delivery; the HTTP protocol normally uses port 80. The content of the HTTP request can be as simple as the two lines of text GET /wiki/World_Wide_Web HTTP/1.1 Host: en.wikipedia.org The computer receiving the HTTP request delivers it to Web server software listening for requests on port 80. If the web server can fulfill the request it

sends an HTTP response back to the browser indicating success, which can be as simple as HTTP/1.0 200 OK Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Followed by; the content of the requested page. The Hypertext Markup Language for a basic web page looks like <html> <head> <title>World Wide Web </head> <body> <p>The World Wide Web, abbreviated as WWW and commonly known ...</p> </body> </html> The web browser parses the HTML, interpreting the markup (<title>, <b> for bold, and such) that surrounds the words in order to draw that text on the screen. Linking: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</title>

Most web pages contain hyperlinks to other related pages and perhaps to downloadable files, source documents, definitions and other web resources (this Wikipedia article is full of hyperlinks). In the underlying HTML, a hyperlink looks like <a href="http://www.w3.org/History/19921103archive

hypertext/hypertext/WWW/">Early of the first Web site</a>

Graphic representation of a minute fraction of the WWW, demonstrating hyperlinks Such a collection of useful, related resources, interconnected via hypertext links is dubbed a web of information. Publication on the Internet created what Tim Berners-Lee first called the WorldWideWeb (in its original CamelCase, which was subsequently discarded) in November 1990.[3] The hyperlink structure of the WWW is described by the webgraph: the nodes of the webgraph correspond to the webpages (or URLs) the directed edges between them to the hyperlinks.

Over time, many web resources pointed to by hyperlinks disappear, relocate, or are replaced with different content. This makes hyperlinks obsolete, a phenomenon referred to in some circles as link rot and the hyperlinks affected by it are often called dead links. The ephemeral nature of the Web has prompted many efforts to archive web sites. The Internet Archive, active since 1996, is one of the best-known efforts.

Real-time process control: Industrial control systems

Industrial control system (ICS) is a general term that encompasses several types of control systems used in industrial production, including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, distributed control systems (DCS), and other smaller control system configurations such as skid-mounted programmable logic controllers (PLC) often found in the industrial sectors and critical infrastructures. ICSs are typically used in industries such as electrical, water, oil, gas and data. Based on information received from remote stations, automated or operatordriven supervisory commands can be pushed to remote station control devices, which are often referred to as field devices. Field devices control local operations such as opening and closing valves and breakers, collecting data from sensor systems, and monitoring the local environment for alarm conditions. A historical perspective:

Industrial control system technology has evolved over the past three to four decades. DCS systems generally refer to the particular functional distributed control system design that exist in industrial process plants (e.g., oil and gas, refining, chemical, pharmaceutical, some food and beverage, water and wastewater, pulp and paper, utility power, mining, metals). The DCS concept came about from a need to gather data and control the systems on a large campus in real time on high-bandwidth, low-latency data networks. It is common for loop controls to extend all the way to the top level controllers in a DCS, as everything works in real time. These systems evolved from a need to extend pneumatic control systems beyond just a small cell area of a refinery. The PLC (programmable logic controller) evolved out of a need to replace racks of relays in ladder form. The latter were not particularly reliable, were difficult to rewire, and were difficult to diagnose. PLC control tends to be used in very regular, high-speed binary controls, such as controlling a high-speed printing press. Originally, PLC equipment did not have remote I/O racks, and many couldn't even perform more than rudimentary analog controls. SCADA's history is rooted in distribution applications, such as power, natural gas, and water pipelines; where there is a need to gather remote data through potentially unreliable or intermittent low-bandwidth/high-latency links. SCADA systems use open-loop control with sites that are widely separated geographically. A SCADA system uses RTUs (remote terminal units, also referred to as remote telemetry units) to send supervisory data back to a control center. Most RTU systems always did have some limited capacity to handle local controls while the master station is not available. However, over

the years RTU systems have grown more and more capable of handling local controls. The boundaries between these system definitions are blurring as time goes on. The technical limits that drove the designs of these various systems are no longer as much of an issue. Many PLC platforms can now perform quite well as a small DCS, using remote I/O andand reliable that some SCADA systems actually manage closed loop control over long distances. With the increasing speed of today's processors, many DCS products have a full line of PLC-like subsystems that weren't offered when they were initially developed. This led to the concept of a PAC (programmable automation controller or process automation controller), that is an amalgamation of these three concepts. Time and the market will determine whether this can simplify some of the terminology and confusion that surrounds these concepts today. DCSs: Distributed Control System DCSs are used to control industrial processes such as electric power generation, oil and gas refineries, water and wastewater treatment, and chemical, food, and automotive production. DCSs are integrated as a control architecture containing a supervisory level of control, overseeing multiple integrated sub-systems that are responsible for controlling the details of a localized process. Product and process control are usually achieved by deploying feedback or feed forward control loops whereby key product and/or process conditions are automatically maintained around a desired set point. To accomplish the

desired product and/or process tolerance around a specified set point, only specific programmable controllers are used. PLCs: Programmable logic controller PLCs provide Boolean logic operations, timers, and (in some models) continuous control. The proportional, integral, and/or differential gains of the PLC continuous control feature may be tuned to provide the desired tolerance as well as the rate of self-correction during process upsets. DCSs are used extensively in process-based industries. PLCs are computer-based solid-state devices that control industrial equipment and processes. While PLCs can control system components used throughout SCADA and DCS systems, they are often the primary components in smaller control system configurations. They are used to provide regulatory control of discrete processes such as automobile assembly lines and power plant soot blower controls and are used extensively in almost all industrial processes.