Architectures Middleware and distributed systems
Middleware: the OS of distributed systems
What does it contain?
Commonly used components and functions that need not be implemented by
applications separately.
Architectures Middleware and distributed systems
Using legacy to build middleware
Problem
The interfaces offered by a legacy component are most likely not suitable for all
applications.
Solution
A wrapper or adapter offers an interface acceptable to a client application. Its
functions are transformed into those available at the component.
Middleware organization
Architectures Middleware and distributed systems
Organizing wrappers
Two solutions: 1-on-1 or through a broker
Complexity with N applications
• 1-on-1: requires N × ( N − 1) = O(N2) wrappers
• broker: requires 2N = O(N) wrappers
Middleware organization
Architectures Middleware and distributed systems
Developing adaptable middleware
Problem
Middleware contains solutions that are good for most applications you may
want to adapt its behavior for specific applications.
Middleware organization
Architectures Middleware and distributed systems
Intercept the usual flow of control
Middleware organization
Architectures Layered-system architectures
Centralized system architectures
Basic Client–Server Model
Characteristics:
• There are processes offering services (servers)
• There are processes that use services (clients)
• Clients and servers can be on different machines
• Clients follow request/reply model regarding using services
Simple client-server architecture
Architectures Layered-system architectures
Multi-tiered centralized system architectures
Some traditional organizations
• Single-tiered: dumb terminal/mainframe configuration
• Two-tiered: client/single server configuration
• Three-tiered: each layer on separate machine
Traditional two-tiered configurations
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
Multitiered Architectures
Architectures Layered-system architectures
Being client and server at the same time
Three-tiered architecture
Multitiered Architectures
Architectures Layered-system architectures
Example: The Network File System
Foundations
Each NFS server provides a standardized view of its local file system: each
server supports the same model, regardless the implementation of the file
system.
The NFS remote access model
Remote access Upload/download
Note
FTP is a typical upload/download model. The same can be said for systems
like Dropbox.
Example: The Network File System
Architectures Layered-system architectures
NFS architecture
Example: The Network File System
Architectures Layered-system architectures
Example: Simple Web servers
Back in the old days...
...life was simple:
• A website consisted as a collection of HTML files
• HTML files could be referred to each other by a hyperlink
• A Web server essentially needed only a hyperlink to fetch a file
• A browser took care of properly rendering the content of a file
Example: The Web
Architectures Layered-system architectures
Example (cnt’d): Less simple Web servers
Still back in the old days...
...life became a bit more complicated:
• A website was built around a database with content
• A Webpage could still be referred to by a hyperlink
• A Web server essentially needed only a hyperlink to fetch a file
• A separate program (Common Gateway Interface) composed a page
• A browser took care of properly rendering the content of a file
Example: The Web
Architectures Symmetrically distributed system architectures
Alternative organizations
Vertical distribution
Comes from dividing distributed applications into three logical layers, and
running the components from each layer on a different server (machine).
Horizontal distribution
A client or server may be physically split up into logically equivalent parts, but
each part is operating on its own share of the complete data set.
Peer-to-peer architectures
Processes are all equal: the functions that need to be carried out are
represented by every process each process will act as a client and a server
at the same time (i.e., acting as a servant).
Architectures Symmetrically distributed system architectures
Structured P2P
Essence
Make use of a semantic-free index: each data item is uniquely associated with
a key, in turn used as an index. Common practice: use a hash function
key(data item) = hash(data item’s value).
P2P system now responsible for storing (key,value) pairs.
Simple example: hypercube
Looking up d with key k {0, 1,2,..., 24 − 1} means routing request to node
with identifier k.
Structured peer-to-peer systems
Architectures Symmetrically distributed system architectures
Example: Chord
Principle
• Nodes are logically organized in a ring. Each node has an m-bit identifier.
• Each data item is hashed to an m-bit key.
• Data item with key k is stored at node with smallest identifier id ≥ k,
called the successor of key k.
• The ring is extended with various shortcut links to other nodes.
Structured peer-to-peer systems
Architectures Symmetrically distributed system architectures
Example: Chord
lookup(3)@9 : 28 → 1 → 4
Structured peer-to-peer systems
