2 Elements of Distributed Computing

Welcome students,

Our second topic in Cloud Computing Semester 3 is Distributed Computing

Compute means a processor does something. Example a processor can add, a processor can subtract using simple machine level program.

In our previous lecture we studied how parallel computing achieved on a single machine using a multi-processor or a multi-core hardware architecture.

In distributed computing, the processing is distributed between two or more software running on same machine or different machine.

Our website is the best example of distributed computing.

Database <------> WebSite <------> Browser

You open the browser, type the link. The browser travels over the internet to another machine via network, where your website is running on a different machine. That website travels on its own network to access the database which is running on yet another machine. The data is embedded in the html page and is sent back to the browser over the network and you finally see a web site page.

During our last year practical’s, we created web service, rest service etc. We ran a browser, website, web service and database all on the same machine but they were four different software layers (MySQL, jersey service + web server (both were installed via mvn repository command), Mozilla firefox browser). The four software’s had to work together so that you see the website page. This is an example of a distributed application which in turn is using distributed computing.

We could have implemented the same example using four different machines too. This is what distributed computing is all about. Four different machines means more processor, more memory, more power, more faster.

In today’s lecture, we come across 4 elements involved in making distributed computing possible.

The four elements of distributed computing are operating system, networks, middleware apps, and last but not the least your application itself.

At the heart of it all, we are implementing inter-process communication which is a glue between different elements of distributed computing.

One process communicates with another process. The inter-process communication uses the four elements of distributed computing to create a distributed application.

In our practical’s we created a distributed application such as below

Database (MySQL) <------> Rest Service <------> Web Server <------> Browser

Our rest service was a jersey service which is an example of Middleware. We had installed it using the mvn repository package.

All our middleware and application (such as browser) run over operating system (example Windows, Linux, Mac, Android etc.) which is capable of inter-process communication on the same machine. These operating system in turn may use underlying networks (osi model) to implement inter-process communication between two software’s running on different machine.

Cloud is an example of distributed computing because all cloud services are distributed application. You access cloud services, control machines running on cloud from anywhere on the internet in the world. You can access cloud services from any devices such as desktop, mobile. During the whole process, cloud uses web site application, web services, networks, hardware, and operating system to give you what software or hardware or service you demand.

Distributed computing can be thought of as an example of parallel computing too because, software’s are running at the same time on same machine or different machine. But when we talk about parallel computing, we mostly are referring to the parallel hardware available on a single machine. When we talk about distributed computing, we are referring mostly to distributed application using inter-process communication.

Cloud (providers like AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) make best use of distributed computing, parallel computing techniques to reach to its customers (called cloud consumers)

Please watch the lecture video, refer the lecture presentation, and complete your quiz on this topic.

Thank you

lecture video: Elements of Distributed Computing

lecture presentation: Elements of Distributed Computing

lecture quiz: Elements of Distributed Computing


 

 

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