UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK TIRANA
EXAMINATION PAPER:
ACADEMIC SESSION 2012/2013
DEPARTMENT:
Computer Science Department
COURSE:
M.Sc. in Computer Science
TITLE OF PAPER:
Advanced Topics in Operating Systems
Date:
May 15, 2012
Duration:
2 hours
Start Time:
6 PM
YOU MUST ANSWER THE QUESTION IN SECTION-A WHICH IS WORTH 40 MARKS.
ANSWER TWO QUESTIONS FROM THE REMAINING THREE QUESTIONS IN SECTION-B, WHICH
ARE WORTH 30 MARKS EACH.
CALCULATORS AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES ARE NOT PERMITTED
Section-A
1.
a) Describe and compare vertical and horizontal distribution in distributed systems
architectures. Which type of distribution is adopted by P2P systems? Give reasons
and discuss their organization in terms of structural properties.
[20 points]
b)
Describe the mechanism through which a middleware can be rendered adaptive.
Discuss from a design point of view, the main approaches for making distributed
software adaptive.
[20 points]
Section-B
2.
a) What is meant by the term “Transparency in distributed systems”? Discuss different
kinds of transparency in such operating systems.
[15 points]
b) Sketch and describe the local-write protocol.
[15 points]
a) Describe the scaling techniques in distributed systems.
[18 points]
b) Describe the server-initiated replication process.
[12 points]
3.
4.
a) What is the main assumption of the Berkeley algorithm for clock synchronization.
Describe and critically evaluate the Berkeley Algorithm.
[18 points]
b) Discuss the different failure models.
[12 points]