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DSA612S - DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS - 1ST OPP - NOV 2023 |
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n Am I BI A u n IVER s I TY
OF SCIEnCE Ano TECHnOLOGY
FACULTYOF COMPUTING AND INFORMATICS
DEPARTMENTOF SOFTWAREENGINEERING
QUALIFICATION:BACHELOROF COMPUTERSCIENCE
QUALIFICATIONCODE:07BCMS, 07BAIT
COURSE:DISTRIBUTEDSYSTEMSAND APPLICATIONS
DATE: NOV 2023
DURATION: 3 HRS
LEVEL:6
COURSECODE: DSA612S
PAPER:THEORY
MARKS: 100
EXAMINER(S)
FIRSTOPPORTUNITYEXAMINATION QUESTION PAPER
Ms. NDINELAGO NASHANDI
MODERATOR:
PROFJOSEQUENUM
THIS QUESTION PAPERCONSISTSOF 4 PAGES
(Including this front page)
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INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS:
l. Read all the questions, passages, scenarios, etc., carefully before answering.
2. Answer all the questions.
3. Number each answer clearly and correctly.
4. Write neatly and legibly.
5. Making use of any crib notes may lead to disqualification and disciplinary action.
6. Use the allocated marks as a guideline when answering questions.
7. Looking at other students' work is strictly prohibited.
8. This paper consists of four (4) pages including the cover page.
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SECTIONA:
• Answer all the questions in the provided booklet.
• The section consists of 7 questions.
1. Explain the concept of fault tolerance in the context of distributed storage systems, with a
focus on the Google File System (GFS). Discuss the mechanisms and strategies
implemented by GFSto achieve high availability [4 marks].
2. Explain transparency as one of the main challenges in designing and building
Distributed Systems? Provide and explain any three types of Transparency. [8
marks]
3. List and explain the key properties of indirect communication. [4 marks]
4. List and explain the three types of order delivery in group communication. [6
marks]
5. List and elaborate on any three forms of group communication. [6 mark]
6. Explain how a client write operation is performed in GFS (Google file Systems).[10
marks]
7. Differentiate between immutable and mutable files in Distributed File Systems
(DFS) discussing their characteristics and implications for data consistency and
access control. [8 marks]
SECTIONB:
• Answer all the questions in the provided booklet.
• The section consists of 5 questions.
1. Describe the core concepts and components of Apache Kafka and explain how they
work together to provide a scalable and fault-tolerant messaging system. [10
marks]
2. Present the architecture of a Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) cluster.
Discuss in detail the read and write operations using HDFS. [8+5 marks]
3. What is meant by a logical clock? Describe Lamport's concept of a logical clock.
(2+6 marks)
4. Outline the sequential procedure of Cristian's Algorithm. Detail the interaction
between the client and server to synchronise the client's time with that of the
server. [8 marks]
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5. Consider Figure 1 that shows four processes (Pl, P2, P3, P4) with events a, b, c,...
and messages communicating between them. Assume that initial logical clock
values are all initialized to 0.
A
P1
B
C
D
P2
E'
F
P3
H
Figure 1: Three processes Pl, P2, P3 run events A,B,C,D, .... to send and receive messages
a) List the Vector Clock timestamps for each event shown in Figure 1.Provide timestamps for
each labelled event. [11 marks]
b) Identifying Concurrent Events [4 marks]
************ End of the Paper***************
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