Chapter 2 - Architectures
Outline
1. Architectural Styles
2. System Architecture
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Introduction
How to organize the collection of software components
logical organization and
physical organization
i.e., software architectures: how they are organized and how
they communicate
We will discuss
Architectural styles
System architectures: centralized vs decentralized ones
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2.1 Architectural Styles
Need to consider the logical organization of distributed
systems into software components- Software
Architecture
The notion of an architectural style is important
Such a style is formulated in terms of components, the
way that components are connected to each other, the
data exchanged between components and finally how
these elements are jointly configured into a system
Basic ideas:
a component is a modular unit with well-defined
required and provided interfaces that is replaceable
within its environment (OMG, 2004b).
a connector is a mechanism that mediates
communication, coordination, or cooperation among
components, e.g., facilities for RPC, message
passing, or streaming data
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2.1 Architectural Styles …
There are various architectural styles
Layered architectures
Object-based architectures
Data-centered architectures
Event-based architectures
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Layered architectures
components are organized in a layered fashion where a
component at layer Li is allowed to call components at
the underlying layer Li-1, but not the other way around;
e.g., network layers
the layered architectural style
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Object-based architectures
each object corresponds to a component and these
components are connected through a (remote)
procedure call mechanism (client-server paradigm)
the object-based architectural style
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Data-centered architectures
processes communicate through a common (passive or
active )repository; e.g., a shared distributed file system
Event-based architectures
processes communicate through the propagation of events
publish/subscribe systems
processes publish events and the middleware ensures that
only those processes that subscribed to those events will
receive them
the event-based architectural style 8
A shared data spaces
event-based architectures combined with data-centered
architectures
processes are decoupled in time
the shared data-space architectural style
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2.2 System Architectures
how many distributed systems are actually organized by
considering where software components are placed.
the logical organization of distributed systems into
software components or how are processes organized in a
system
Two forms of Software architecture also called a system
architecture
Centralized Architecture
Decentralized Architecture
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2.2.1 Centralized Architectures
thinking in terms of clients requesting services from
servers
In the basic client-server model, processes in a distributed system are
divided into two (possibly overlapping) groups.
A server is a process implementing a specific service, for example, a file
system service or a database service.
A client is a process that requests a service from a server by sending it a
request and subsequently waiting for the server's reply.
This client-server interaction, also known as request-reply
general interaction between a client and a server
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Communication between client and server can be
by a connectionless protocol if the underlying network is
fairly reliable (LAN);
efficient since there is no much overhead
but assuring reliability is difficult
when messages are lost or corrupted let the client
send the request again; applicable only for
idempotent operations
an operation is idempotent if it can be repeated
multiple times without harm; e.g., reading a record
in a database
see later in Chapter 8: Fault Tolerance
by reliable connection-oriented protocol if the underlying
network is unreliable (WAN)
establishing and terminating connections is
expensive 12
Application Layering
no clear distinction between a client and a server;
for instance a server for a distributed database may act
as a client when it forwards requests to different file
servers
three levels exist
the user-interface level: implemented by clients and
contains all that is required by a client; usually
through GUIs, but not necessarily
the processing level: contains the applications
the data level: contains the programs that maintain
the actual data dealt with
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e.g., the general organization of an Internet search engine
into three different layers
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Client-Server Architectures
how to physically distribute a client-server application
across several machines
Multitiered Architectures
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Two-tiered architecture: alternative client-server organizations
(a) put only terminal-dependent part of the user interface on the
client machine and let the applications remotely control the
presentation
(b) put the entire user-interface software on the client side
(c) move part of the application to the client, e.g. checking
correctness in filling forms
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(d) and (e) are for powerful client machines (more popular)
three tiered architecture: an example of a server acting as a client
an example is the organization of Web sites
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2.2.2 Decentralized Architectures
vertical distribution: the ones discussed so far
where the different tiers correspond directly with the
logical organization of applications; place logically
different components on different machines
horizontal distribution: physically split up the client
or the server into logically equivalent parts
an example is a peer-to-peer system where
processes are equal and hence each process acts
as a client and a server at the same time (servent)
read about the different approaches of peer-to-
peer architecture - pages 44 - 51 and about
Architectures versus Middleware - pages 54 - 66
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another example is the horizontal distribution of a Web
service
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