What This Document Is
This is a homework assignment for CS 757: Distributed Systems and Algorithms at West Virginia University. It focuses on core concepts within distributed systems, specifically relating to processes, communication, and server architectures. The assignment is designed to test your understanding of theoretical principles and their practical implications in building and analyzing distributed applications. It requires both short-answer responses and a more substantial essay component based on external research.
Why This Document Matters
This assignment is crucial for students enrolled in a distributed systems course. Successfully completing it demonstrates a grasp of fundamental concepts like concurrency, state management in servers, and the trade-offs involved in different communication paradigms. It’s particularly valuable for those preparing for roles in software engineering, systems administration, or research involving networked applications and cloud computing. Working through these problems will solidify your ability to design, analyze, and troubleshoot distributed systems.
Common Limitations or Challenges
This assignment does *not* provide a comprehensive lecture recap or step-by-step solutions. It assumes you have a foundational understanding of the course material covered in lectures and readings. It also doesn’t offer code examples or a working implementation of the discussed concepts. The essay portion requires independent research and critical thinking skills beyond the immediate course materials. It tests your ability to synthesize information and articulate complex ideas.
What This Document Provides
* A series of analytical questions exploring the performance characteristics of single-threaded versus multi-threaded servers.
* Problem statements requiring comparison of different server architectures (process-based vs. thread-based).
* Scenarios to assess your understanding of stateful and stateless server designs.
* Questions probing your knowledge of endpoint assignment and its implications.
* A research-based essay prompt centered around the PlanetLab project.
* Conceptual challenges related to file access in distributed environments.
* Questions examining the rationale behind layered protocol designs.
* Exploration of the scalability of different communication methods.
* Discussion points on message-oriented communication and its benefits.
* Comparative analysis of message-queuing systems and email systems.
* Identification of key characteristics of data streams.
