JIMMA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING

ADVANCED OPERATING SYSTEM

Prapared by : Nuredin kedir

12/27/2022 Advanced Operating System 1

 A Distributed File System (DFS) 
 Introduction to Distributed File
System (DSF)
Architecture of DFS
 Mechanism for Building DFS
 Design Issues

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 Introduction to Distributed File
Systems(DFS)
File system component of OS that performs organization, storage,
retrieval, sharing and protection of files

A DFS is a file system whose clients, servers, and storage devices

are dispersed among the machines of a distributed system
Accordingly, service activity has to be carried out across the
network; instead of a single centralized data repository, there are
multiple independent storage devices.

It allows programs to access or store isolated files as they do with

the local ones, allowing programmers to access files from any
network or computer. 

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 Goals of DFS
• DFS has two important goals:-
 Network transparency :- users not aware of
location of files they only concern the request
of files
 High availability:- system failures or failure in
regularly scheduled activities should not
result into an availability of files

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 Architecture of DFS
DFS is called client-server architecture
based application
it allows user or clients to access the
data from the server as it stored in
their own computer.
It provides location transparency and
redundancy help to improve the data
availability
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It provides transparency of data and
allows sharing it remotely.
is also highly secure and helps
protect data in the file system from
unauthorized access.
 It also supports load sharing and file
locking features.

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 the structure of a DFS
 A service is a software entity running on
one or more machines and providing a particular
type of function to clients.
 A server is the service software running on a single
machine. They access files stored on server remotely
or from storage area
 A client: used solely for computational purpose. They
access files on stored on servers
 Client machines can be equipped with local disk
storage that can be used for caching remote files as
storage area
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 CLIENT CLIENT

LOCAL
STORAGE
COMUNICATION
NETWORK

SERVE SERVER SERVE SERVER

R DISK R DISK

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 CLIENT Data access actions in DSF
Return data to
SERVER
Request to client
access the data
Data
Check present Load data to Load server
client client cache cache
cache

Data not Issue disk read

present
Data not
Check Data present present
local Data
Check
disk present
server
cache
Data not
present Send request F/ Commu N/W
to file server S
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 Advantages  
 DFS allows multiple user to access or store the data.
 It allows the data to be share remotely.
 It improved the availability of file, access time, and
network efficiency.
 Improved the capacity to change the size of the data
and also improves the ability to exchange the data.
 Distributed File System provides transparency of data
even if server or disk fails.

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 Characteristics of distributed file system

Remote data/file sharing

User mobility
Availability
Data Integrity
Performance
Diskless workstations

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 Remote data/file sharing:
  It allows a file to be transparently
accessed by processes of any node of the
system irrespective of the file’s location.
Example:
Any process  ‘A’ can create the file and
share it with other processes ‘B’ or ‘C’ and
the same file can be accessed/modified
process running in other nodes.
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 User mobility:
Users in the distributed systems are
allowed to work in any system at any
time.
So, users need not relocate
secondary storage devices in
distributed file systems.

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 Availability
Distributed file systems keep
multiple copies of the same file in
multiple places.
Hence, the availability of the
distributed file system is high and it
maintains a better fault tolerance for
the system.
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 Data Integrity
Data saved in a transferred file must have its
integrity protected by the file system. The
correct synchronization of concurrent access
requests from multiple users vying for access
to the same file requires a concurrency control
method. Atomic transactions, which are high-
level concurrency management systems for
data integrity, are frequently made available
to users by file systems. 

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 Performance:

 Performance is evaluated using

the typical amount of time it
takes to persuade a client. It must
function in a manner comparable
to a centralized file system.

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 Diskless workstations: 
 Distributed file systems allow the use of
diskless workstations to reduce noise and heat
in the system.  Also, diskless workstations are
more economical than disk full workstations. 

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Mechanism for building Distributed file system

Use of File Models: 

Use of File Accessing Models: 
Use of File sharing Semantics: 
Use of File -Caching Schemes: 
Use of File Replications: 

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 Use of FIle Models:
   The following are the two basic criteria for
file modeling,
file structure . The files can be unstructured
or structured based on the applications used
in file systems.
modifiability. Also, the modifiability of the
file can be categorized as mutable and
immutable files. 

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 Use of FIle Accessing Models: 
  A distributed file system may use one of the
following models to service a client’s file
access request when the accessed file is a
remote file.
Remote service model and
 Data-caching model. 

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 Use of FIle sharing Semantics:
 A shared file may be simultaneously accessed
by multiple users.
 The types of file-sharing semantics can be
used such as Unix Semantics, Session
Semantics, Immutable shared files semantics,
and transaction-like semantics. 

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 Use of FIle -Caching Schemes:
 Basically following key criteria used in file
caching scheme ,
cache  location,
modification propagation,
and
 cache validation
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 Use of FIle Replications:
  File replication is the primary mechanism for
improving file availability in a distributed
systems environment.
 A replicated file is a file that has multiple
copies with each copy located on a separate
file server.

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Design Issues of Distributed System

 Transparency
 User mobility 
 Heterogeneity 
 Openness
 Scalability
 Security 
 Concurrency
 High reliability
 Data integrity
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 Transparency 
Transparency ensures that the distributes
system should be perceived as a single entity
by the users or the application programmers
rather than the collection of autonomous
systems, which is cooperating. The user should
be unaware of where the services are located
and the transferring from a local machine to a
remote one should be transparent.

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 Transparency
Structure transparency
There is no need for the client to know about the number or
locations of file servers and the storage devices. Multiple file
servers should be provided for performance, adaptability, and
dependability.
Access transparency
Both local and remote files should be accessible in the same
manner. The file system should be automatically located on the
accessed file and send it to the client’s side.
Naming transparency
There should not be any hint in the name of the file to the location
of the file. Once a name is given to the file, it should not be
changed during transferring from one node to another.
Replication transparency
If a file is copied on multiple nodes, both the copies of the file and
their locations should beAdvanced
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hidden from one node to another.
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 User mobility 

• It will automatically bring the user’s home

directory to the node where the user logs in.

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 Heterogeneity 
Heterogeneity is applied to the network,
computer hardware, operating system and
implementation of different developers.
A key component of the heterogeneous
distributed system client-server environment
is middleware.
Middleware is a set of services that enables
application and end-user to interacts with
each other across a heterogeneous
distributed system.
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 Openness
The openness of the distributed system is determined
primarily by the degree to which new resource-
sharing services can be made available to the users.
Open systems are characterized by the fact that their
key interfaces are published.
It is based on a uniform communication mechanism
and published interface for access to shared
resources.
It can be constructed from heterogeneous hardware
and software.

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 Scalability
Scalability of the system should remain
efficient even with a significant increase in
the number of users and resources
connected.
It shouldn’t matter if a program has 10 or
100 nodes; performance shouldn’t vary.
A distributed system’s scaling requires
consideration of a number of elements,
including size, geography, and management.
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 Security 
 Security of information system has
three components Confidentially,
integrity and availability.
Encryption protects shared resources,
keeps sensitive information secrets when
transmitted.

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 Concurrency
 There is a possibility that several clients will
attempt to access a shared resource at the
same time.
 Multiple users make requests on the same
resources, i.e. read, write, and update. Each
resource must be safe in a concurrent
environment.
 Any object that represents a shared resource in
a distributed system must ensure that it
operates correctly in a concurrent environment.
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 High reliability
 The likelihood of data loss should be minimized as
much as feasible in a suitable distributed file system.
 That is, because of the system’s unreliability, users
should not feel forced to make backup copies of their
files.
 Rather, a file system should create backup copies of
key files that can be used if the originals are lost.
 Many file systems employ stable storage as a high-
reliability strategy.

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 Data integrity
 Multiple users frequently share a file system.
 The integrity of data saved in a shared file must be
guaranteed by the file system.
 That is, concurrent access requests from many users
who are competing for access to the same file must be
correctly synchronized using a concurrency control
method.
 Atomic transactions are a high level concurrency
management mechanism for data integrity that is
frequently offered to users by a file system.
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