Get premium membership and access revision papers, questions with answers as well as video lessons.

Bit312-Distributed Systems Question Paper

Bit312-Distributed Systems

Course:Bachelor Of Information Technology

Institution: South Eastern Kenya University question papers

Exam Year:2013

SOUTH EASTERN KENYA UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS 2013/2014

THIRD YEAR SECOND SEMESTER EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

BIT312-DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

DATE: 12th August 2013 TIME: (2 HOURS)
INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
• Section A (Compulsory)
• Answer ANY TWO questions from section B

SECTION A (30 Marks) – Compulsory
Question One:
a. Explain the following :
i. Idempotent operation;
ii. Distributed system
iii. Stateful server. (3 Marks)
b. Distinguish between tightly coupled and loosely coupled system. (2 Marks)

c.
i. Explain the concept of distributed shared memory. (3 Marks)
ii. Using an example describe the two level file naming scheme in a distributed system.
(3 Marks)
d.
i. Explain the importance of atomic multi-cast in replication. (2 Marks)
ii. Distinguish between call by reference and call by value. (2 Marks)
e.
i. Using a diagram explain middleware showing where it is positioned in a distributed system. (3 Marks)
ii. Explain berkeley synchronization algorithm using an example. (4 Marks)

f .i. Explain the ACID properties of a transaction. (4 Marks)
ii. Describe two design challenges of a distributed systems. (4 Marks)

SECTION B (40 marks)- Answer any Two Questions
Question Two:
a. Define a leap second stating its use in synchronization. (2 Marks)
b. Explain Cristian’s algorithm for Clock synchronization. (2 Marks)
c. Explain the Bully algorithm using an example. (4 Marks)
d. You have been appointed the team leader to a project that is tasked to develop and implement a distributed system in fast growing company .Explain three distributed system design goals that your team would aim to achieve. (6 Mark)
e. Describe the three components of a distributed file system stating one function for each.
(6 Marks)

Question Three:
a. Explain two desirable features of a good message passing system. (2 Marks)
b. Distinguish between remote and local procedure calls. (2 Marks)
c. In a recent meeting the managing directors of KINASWA Ltd Kenya resolved that there was need to decentralize their service across the forty counties. They appointed a five expert task force to spearhead the project. Explain four reasons for move. (4 Marks)
d. With an aid of a well labeled diagram, explain remote procedure call between client A and server B. (12 Marks)

Question Four:
a. Explain the Four –Message Reliable IPC protocol. (4 Marks)
b. List one advantage and four disadvantages of the stateless file servers.
(5 Marks)
c. The SEKU distributed systems group is designing a distributed file system with the following characteristics:
• File access model: remote service model
• It will have two major components: the directory service and the file service.
• File sharing semantics: session semantics
• The file system is such that when a file is moved, the client program needs to be changed.
i. Explain the form of transparency that is lacking in the SEKU distributed file system. (3 Marks)
ii. How is the client’s request processed in the SEKU distributed file system? (2 Marks)
iii. Describe the file sharing semantics used by the SEKU distributed file system. (2 Marks)
d. With examples describe four forms of transparency in a distributed system. (4 Marks)

Bit312-Distributed Systems Question Paper

More Question Papers

Popular Exams