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Lahore Garrison University
Parallel and Distributed
Computing
Session Fall 2024
Lecture – 05 Week – 03
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Preamble
Introduction to transactions
The Transaction Model
A.C.I.D
Types of Transactions
Nested Transactions vs. Distributed Transactions
Write-Ahead Log
Concurrency Control
Serializability
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Lesson Plan
Fault Tolerance Basic Concepts
Dependability Basic Concepts
Fault and Types of fault
Failure Models
Failure Masking by Redundancy
Agreement in Faulty Systems
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Fault Tolerance Basic Concepts
Dealing successfully with partial failure within a
Distributed System.
Being fault tolerant is strongly related to what are called
dependable systems.
Dependability implies the following:
1. Availability
2. Reliability
3. Safety
4. Maintainability
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Dependability Basic Concepts
Availability – the system is ready to be used immediately.
Reliability – the system can run continuously without failure.
Safety – if a system fails, nothing catastrophic
will happen.
Maintainability – when a system fails, it can
be repaired easily and quickly (sometimes, without its users noticing the
failure).
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Phases of Fault Tolerance
Fault Detection
Fault Diagnosis
Evidence Generation
Assessment
Recovery
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Fault and Types of Fault
A system is said to “fail” when it cannot meet its promises.
A failure is brought about by the existence
of “errors” in the system.
The cause of an error is a “fault”.
There are three main types of ‘fault’:
1. Transient Fault – appears once, then disappears.
2. Intermittent Fault – occurs, vanishes, reappears; but: follows no real pattern
(worst kind).
3. Permanent Fault – once it occurs, only the replacement/repair of a faulty component
will allow the DS to function normally.
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Failure Models
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Failure Masking by Redundancy
Strategy: hide the occurrence of failure from other processes using
redundancy.
Three main types:
1. Information Redundancy – add extra bits to allow for error detection/recovery
(e.g., Hamming codes and the like).
2. Time Redundancy – perform operation and, if needs be, perform it again. Think
about how transactions work (BEGIN/END/COMMIT/ABORT).
3. Physical Redundancy – add extra (duplicate) hardware and/or software to the
system.
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Agreement in Faulty Systems
Possible cases:
1. Synchronous (lock-step) versus asynchronous systems.
2. Communication delay is bounded (by globally and predetermined maximum
time) or not.
3. Message delivery is ordered (in real-time) or not.
4. Message transmission is done through unicasting or multicasting.
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Lesson Review
Fault Tolerance Basic Concepts
Dependability Basic Concepts
Fault and Types of fault
Failure Models
Failure Masking by Redundancy
Agreement in Faulty Systems
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Next Lesson Preview
Flynn’s Classification: Hardware dimensions of memory and control
SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data)
MIMD (Multiple Instruction Multiple Data)
Comparison between SIMD and MIMD
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References
To cover this topic, different reference material has been used for
consultation.
Textbook:
Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms, A. S. Tanenbaum and M.
V. Steen, Prentice Hall, 2nd Edition, 2007.
Distributed and Cloud Computing: Clusters, Grids, Clouds, and the
Future Internet, K. Hwang, J. Dongarra and GC. C. Fox, Elsevier, 1st Ed.
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