Distributed Systems Lecturer: John Maina J m K n a U iv r o o e y tta n e sity o A r u r a T c n lo y f g ic ltu e n e h o g D istrib tedS ste s E e c I u y m x r ise Question One a) Define

the following terms: i.) scalability ii.) Heterogeneity iii.)transparency b) State and explain the characteristics of distributed systems. c) State any three components of DCE, and explain any two. d) State and explain any two election algorithms. e) Explain ways of deadlock recovery. f) Define the following terms: i.) DCS ii.) DOS g) What is RPC? Explain RPC messages. h) With the help of a block diagram, explain the two computer architectures, consisting of interconnected multiple processors. i) State and explain any four strategies for buffering. j) Comment on the three major types of Atomic Transactions. k) What is concurrency? Explain three context under which concurrency arises. l) What is a deadlock? State the conditions that must be present for a deadlock to be possible. m) Briefly explain the three control problems associated with competing processes. Question Two a) What are the types of distributed architectures? Explain them all. b) What are the requirements of mutual exclusion? c) Explain any two strategies employed to handle deadlocks. d) State and explain any four DCS models. e) Differentiate between stateless and stateful servers with the help of a diagram. f) List down the seven layers of OSI model and discuss the purpose of each layer g) Explain the difference between NOS and DOS. h) Discuss the evolution of DCS. i) What is the difference between a client/server and a distributed system? j) Differentiate between the following transparency

Distributed Systems Lecturer: John Maina i.) Location and access transparency. ii.) Performance and scaling transparency. k) Why do some distributed systems use two-level naming? l) Discuss the difference between deterministic and heuristic algorithms in relation to the design for processor allocation. Question Three a) With aid of a hierarchy tree, sketch the taxonomy of parallel and distributed computers (i.e. MIMD). b) Name three non-object oriented classes of middleware and discuss them. c) State five advantages of distributed systems over centralized systems. d) What is a distributed system? e) Discuss the following terms: i.) Open system. ii.) OSI model. iii.)Protocols. f) What are the ACID properties of transactions? g) Discuss the following terminologies used with distributed computing. i.) Distributed computing ii.) Segmented or parallel computing iii.)Computer networking or fragmented computing h) What is the difference between distributed systems and uniprocess? i) On which layer does object middleware build? And which layer does the middleware implement? j) When would you use threads and when would you use message queues to implement asynchronous requests? * * * * * All the best John Maina * * * * *