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Cisy 432:Distributed Systems Question Paper

Cisy 432:Distributed Systems

Course:Computer Information Systems

Institution: Kenya Methodist University question papers

Exam Year:2010

FACULTY : SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOY

DEPARTMENT : CIS AND BIT

TIME : 2 HOURS

INSTRUCTIONS Answer Questios ONE in Section A and any other TWO Questions in Section B

SECTION A

Question 1

a) Define a distributed system (3Marks)

b) State any four challenges in the design of scalable distributed systems. (4Marks)

c) In message based communication systems, what is the difference between persistent messaging and transient messaging? (4Marks)

d) Explain the following name mapping concepts in distributed file systems. (4Marks)

i) Location transparency

ii) Location independence

e) Explain replication as used in distributed systems. (3Marks)

f) During the design and implementation of replication in a distributed system, there are a number of issues that must be addressed. State any four such issues. (4Marks)

g) Differentiate between causal and FIFO consistency models. (4Marks)

h) Explain the four properties of a transaction in the context of distributed systems.(4Marks)

SECTION B

Question 2

In distributed file systems, the goal of catching is to reduce both network traffic and disk input/output overheads.

a) Explain caching as used in distributed file systems. (4Marks)

b) Describe the two methods used to verify the validity of cached data. (6Marks)

c) Explain two Cache-Update policies. (6Marks)

d) Give any two advantages of caching as compared to remote services such as RPCs. (4Marks)

Question 3

a) With the aid of a well labeled diagram, describe how connectionless communication proceeds between a client and a server when using sockets. (6Marks)

b) Consider a remote procedure product(x,y) that takes two integer parameters and return their product as a result. Given that the procedure’s implementation is in a server machine and the call is made from a client machine, explain with the aid of a diagram the steps involved in doing a remote computation with RPC. (8Marks)

c) Explain any three issues/challenges in the implementation of RPCs. (6Marks)

Question 4

a) Using a banking example, describe: (8Marks)

i) The lost update problem

ii) The inconsistent retrievals problem

b) Using an illustration, describe a deadlock in the context of transaction processing. (4Marks)

c) Describe the two popular deadlock prevention schemes. (8Marks)

Cisy 432:Distributed Systems Question Paper

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