Distributed Computer System - Essay Example

DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER SYSTEM An Analysis Report Presented Institute: Table of Contents Task According to Godfrey. (2006), in early years of the twenty first century there has been an huge increase in worldwide networking communications in the form of wireless as well as wired broadband connections to the internet such as customary general purpose computer systems, specialist machines, mobile communication devices, and new enhanced remote communication services. However, the basic challenge is to use different communications arrangements to offer up to date services that fulfill user requirements reliably. Additionally, the traditional tools and techniques of software design and testing are not for all time appropriate to deal with this challenge. A distributed system is structured by numerous self-directed computers that communicate throughout a computer network. In addition, the communication systems cooperate with each other to attain a common objective/goal. Moreover, a computer program that executes in a distributed system is acknowledged as a distributed program, and distributed programming is the procedure of writing similar programs (Godfrey., 2006; Bal et al., 1989). Centralized Systems Centralized systems are utilized today for various reason. This type of computing helps corporations store all the data in a single location, which helps them make sure everyone is working with the same information. For example, bank ATMs run over a centralized network. In this scenario, ATMs are the clients, and the large computers at the banks are the main server (Forouzan & Fegan, 2003; Nash, 2000, p.10). Hales (2007) stated that centralization can be taken as the allocation of the entire IT resources to one particular business unit that offers IT services to whole corporation. Additionally, the major characteristics of a centralized technique comprise efficiency, control and cost saving. In addition, the centralized techniques are effectual in attaining the control over a business or corporation’s information system. Moreover, a centralized system can centralized or it can be a cost saving reordering of an organization’s information systems to one particular position (Hales, 2007). Advantages According to Wall (2001), the key advantage of centralized systems is that they offer centralized power through established technology and vendors. They therefore engage less technical risks. Additionally, the corporate information systems professionals offer extremely dependable role to maintain similar business systems. In addition, there should be no confusion over jobs as well as the software and hardware employed at the corporation. However, to establish a centralized business management system there is need for the better duplication of resources, efforts, and expertise that are as well reduced to save cost and time (Wall, 2001; Nash, 2000, p.10). Disadvantages According to Hales (2007) the basic disadvantage of centralized systems is that they involve a high cost of establishment. Additionally, the IT professionals who develop and maintain similar systems are as well expensive. In addition, the rigidity and administration of these systems can increase the expenses because of one central system that is responsible to maintain all the requested jobs, thus this system is visibly going to be a great deal slower as compared to the decentralized IS and operational systems where every business unit has its own independent system to carry out local or individual jobs. Moreover, independent or local processing is not permitted and the whole system depends on a single CPU. In this scenario, if the CPU stops working or in case of any system failure, the whole system is closed. Furthermore, a lot of centralized systems are inaccessible for real business concerns and priorities. In centralized computing systems there are no personal attentions to individual groups (Hales, 2007; Nash, 2000, p.10). Decentralized Systems According to King (1990), decentralization provides individual business entities autonomy over their own IT handling and working resources without some key considerations over other units unless it is necessary to the general organization strategy. However, the major characteristics of a decentralized technique comprise empowerment, flexibility of individual business divisions and service orientation. In addition, the decentralized techniques tend to be as efficient as centralized ones in order to convince individual’s requirements (King, 1990; Nash, 2000, p.11). Advantages According to Wall (2001), in decentralized systems, the development costs are comparatively small as compared to centralized arrangement. Additionally, customizing and scaling the system according to individual requirements is also feasible in such arrangement. Therefore local processing is allowed. In other words, there is increased independence in the system. In addition, the organizational responsiveness and flexibility are a main benefits offered by this technology through autonomy. And because of this autonomy, there is better scope of motivating and connecting clients since the local individuals can manage their own business tasks or jobs. The reason is that they will have to do something in a great deal more accountable manner thus they control their own fate. Maybe the majority significant advantage is that dependability is augmented greatly since numerous computer systems are concerned. On the hand, in the decentralized structure if one working node (computer system) fails or stops working, the other nodes (systems) that are part of it will still be capable to work and offer desired working (Wall, 2001; Nash, 2000, p.11). According to Godfrey (2006), the decentralization also offers various advantages such as augmented reliability, management and motivation responsiveness. In this secanrio, the decision-makers are closer to clients. Since, the clients offer the information to build significant decisions. Thus, it relates to all the aspects of the corporation not just the IT department (Godfrey., 2006; Nash, 2000, p.11). Disadvantages According to Hales (2007), in the changing nature of the decentralized systems there is lack of centralized control. Thus, it can be extremely disadvantageous as contradictory thoughts arise and conflicts in policy making toward delays. In addition, one vendor cannot supply all the different parts of the system. Moreover, there is a high quantity of duplication of effort, resources and expertise, which wastes time and increases expenses (Hales, 2007; Nash, 2000, p.11). Issues with design of the DCS techniques In the development of DCS technology at the corporation, the management can face certain issues, which can be related to the design and implementation. In designing the DCS techniques they can face the problems regarding the communication and development of these technologies. However, these problems can be mutual exclusion based problems, like that dining philosophers problem. On the other hand, in the development of the distributed technology system it is supposed to constantly coordinate utilization of shared resources consequently there would no deadlocks or conflicts happen. In addition, the development, design, and implementation of the DCS technology involve some fundamental challenges that are unique to distributed computing. Here, initial instance is challenges that are associated to fault-tolerance such as byzantine fault tolerance, consensus problems and self-stabilisation problems (Gray & Anderton, 1987; Diab & Zomaya, 2005; Nash, 2000). Organizational benefits from DCS techniques By implementing DCS techniques organizations can get a lot of business manegement and operational advantages such as easy and reliable communication among business divisions. Another most important advantage is simple organization of all the business data and information as well as it’s on time availability at all the business divisions. Another main advantage that organizations can take from the DCS technology is sharing of all the business resources in a much better way. Moreover, the DCS technique helps management effectively manage business activities since it makes available all the business data and information at a central/single location. Furthermore, this technology also assists in mentoring and workers jobs. Limitations In the development of DCS technology organizations can face some challenges regarding time and cost. Because majority of IT projects fail due to project time or cost overrun. Thus, to develop and implement the DCS technology corporations need to establish a tight arrangement for tracking and managing the project timeline. In this way they will be able to successfully meet the project deadlines. Task 2 Multi –tier architecture According to Ramirez (2000), the distributed programming normally falls into one of numerous fundamental categories or architectures such as 3-tier architecture, client–server, distributed objects, n-tier architecture, tight coupling and loose coupling. Three-tier is a client server structural design in that the client interface, functional procedure logic, computer data storage and data contact are established and upheld like independent modules, the majority often on divided platforms (Ramirez, 2000; Kioskea, 2009). In development of DCS structure for a client a corporation needs to assess and analyze some multi-tier architectures and middlewares. In this scenario I will prefer the 3-tier architecture that will be more suitable for the development of technology based arrangement at the client corporation. In specifying the business network architecture, we have decided to implement 3-tier network model, since the 3-tier network model for the client business will offer a lot of advantages for instance all the technology resources will be distributed all through the network, and will be usable throughout the organization despite of their connectivity to multiple machines (like that a printer will be connected to a department server can be accessible to all the employees of department) (Kioskea, 2009; Ramirez, 2000). Figure 1- Client/ Server network Structure [Source: http://www.about-knowledge.com/client-server-architecture-and-types-of-client-server-architecture/] In case of three-tier network architecture, there will be an intermediary level, it means that network structure will be generally divided into three parts (Kioskea, 2009): A network arrangement at this network will have a client that will be a computer that requests the resources, equipped by the user interface (normally a web browser) established for the business. Here business client or customer will come to deal with the corporation. The next level will be a business application server (also acknowledged as the middleware). It is responsible for offering the requested resources, however by calling one more server. The last tier of this structure will be a data server, which offers the application server requested data. Figure 2- Three-Tier network- [Source: http://en.kioskea.net/contents/cs/cs3tier.php3] These three tier network structures will help the business effectively handle and manage the business arrangement and resources. In this scenario, the web based business of our client will have a direct and better interaction with the business database and network resources. This new technology based arrangement will be a joint structure of the web based and network based infrastructure for the business operations and tasks management (Kioskea, 2009; Nichol, 1997). According to Kambalyal (2009), a variety of hardware and software architectures are employed in distributed computing. At lower level, it is essential to connect numerous CPUs through some sort of network, in spite of whether that network is made up of loosely-coupled cables and devices or printed onto a circuit board. On the other hand, at upper level, it is essential to connect processes running on those CPUs via a number of communication arrangements (Kambalyal, 2009). Kambalyal (2009) outlined that apart from the customary advantages of DCS technology implementation through the modular design, the three-tier architecture is established to permit any of the three tiers to be replaced or upgraded independently as the organization’s needs or technology change. For instance, a change of business operating system in the presentation tier would simply influence the user interface code. However, the user interface executes on a business desktop computer system or workstation and utilizes a standard GUI (Kambalyal, 2009). Figure 1- 3 Tier Architecture Source-[http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3508] Middleware This section outlines a detailed overview of the middleware for the DCS technology implementation via 3-tier network architecture at the client business. According to Nichol (2009), in the three-tier architecture for the business network arrangement, a middle tier is established between the database management server setting and user system interface client setting. However, there are a lot of methods of establishing this middle tier, for instance, messaging middleware, transaction processing monitoring or application servers. In addition, the middle tier is able to carry out various tasks such as application execution, queuing and database queries. For instance if the middle tier offers queuing, the client is able to carry out its demand to the middle layer as well as disengage for the reason that the middle tier will allow access to the data and repeat the response to the client. Moreover, the middle layer includes scheduling and prioritization of the business work in progress. Furthermore, the 3-tier client/server architecture for our client’s business will offer better performance to the groups with a huge number of users and develop flexibility when evaluated with the 2-tier approach (Nichol, 1997) & (kioskea, 2009). I will propose a suitable middleware for our client business that can be remote procedure call or message oriented middleware. Task 3 Security Standards This section presents the security standards for our client business as well as critically analyzes the security aspects. This section will present different technique that can be employed to safely interconnect different corporate divisions to construct “virtual organizations” and facilitate better business information transfer via a more secure business network. Additionally, the developed network for our corporation will offer access to resources obtainable on diverse sites divided geographically. This structure of business will permit the corporations to come to our new business and build profitable relationships. In this scenario for the development of the connection (internalization or externalization of our client business’ activities) we will require creating the efficient security architecture that will allow effective business data sharing and information handling. In this scenario the most appropriate security based DCS network establishment is possible through the virtual private network (Benzekri, 2009; Kamel et al., 2008). To establish security standard at the corporation it is necessary to assess the baseline security requirements that are based on the information tier level.  Additionally, each class of information will have an allocated group of baselines that require increasing security standards, applied for the enhanced risk management program to ensure the business integrity, confidentiality and availability (Benzekri, 2009). In our client business we have a 3- tier network architecture that requires high level security at each level of the business arrangement. In addition, in case of security standards implementation we will require ensuring the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of data in support of our client business arrangement. In such a DCS establishment “interoperability” is as well an important issue, claiming for standard IT communications to help overall business communication (Benzekri, 2009; Kamel et al., 2008). When considering the special kinds of co-operation inside the virtual enterprise, scalability has to be dealt with for the creation of more reliable network. One of the most important security standards that we need to implement is regarding the establishment of the business information and data scanning and encryption, which involves hiding the overall business data and information throughout transmission. In this way any data leakage cannot cause a huge damage to business data and information (Benzekri, 2009). In our client corporation we need to establish the standards based on public key supported communications. In addition, we will ensure/allow the proper and authorized login to business systems. Here we will establish the public key security standards “X.509 certificates” (Benzekri, 2009; Kamel et al., 2008). ISO Security Standards In this section I will discuss some ISO based security standards for our client business. The basic aim of ISO/IEC 18028 and ISO/IEC 27033 standards is to expand the IT security management strategy offered in ISO/IEC TR 13335 by detailing the precise mechanisms and operations required to apply network security measures as well as controls in a broad variety of network conditions, and offering a bridge among general IT security management issues: (ISO27001security, 2010; International Organization for Standardization , 2010; ISO-3, 2010): ISO/IEC 27033-1:2009 Business Information ISO/IEC 18028-2:2006 Network Security ISO/IEC 18028-3:2005 Networks Security Using Security Gateways ISO/IEC 18028-4:2005 Securing Remote Access ISO/IEC 18028-5:2006 Securing communications throughout networks via virtual private networks Task 4 According to Armbrust et al (2009), at the present the evolution of cloud computing is one of the main technological developments. Additionally, a main characteristic of cloud computing is that business or corporate information usage and storage required not being limited with geography or space (Armbrust et al., 2009). In addition, IT corporations are able to decide to establish applications on private, public or hybrid clouds. Each cloud offers different services and has different trade-offs. However, the private, public and hybrid terms do not state location. Additionally, the public clouds are normally out there on the internet based platforms. On the other hand, the private clouds are normally positioned on premises. In addition, a private cloud could be hosted at co-location premises. Moreover, the corporations can formulate a number of concerns through cloud computing model which one they decide to utilize, and they might utilize more than one model to resolve diverse problems. Furthermore, an application required on a momentary basis could be most excellent suited for utilization in a public cloud for the reason that it helps stay away from buying extra equipment to resolve a temporary problem (Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2009). Offering Services A Software as a Service provider normally handles and hosts a specified application in its individual data center as well as makes it available to numerous occupants and users over the web. Additionally, the software as a Service is an application deployment and development arrangement which is carried as a service by the developers over the internet. In addition, it ensures the deployment and development of applications without the complexity and cost of purchasing and handling the necessary arrangement since it encompasses all the services necessary to complete whole life cycle of structuring and carrying web services and applications and is fully and easily available on internet. On the other hand, IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) is a process of offering the hardware (for instance storage, server and network), and linked software (file system and OSs virtualization technology), as a service (Bennett et al., 2009). Advantages Here are the following advantages of the establishment of the business services through the clouds computing (ISACA, 2009; Bennett et al., 2009; Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2009): Lower cost of implementation Increased pace of innovation Increased storage Highly automated More mobility Issues Here are the following issues in the development of business services through the clouds computing (Hubbard et al, 2010; Bennett et al., 2009; Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2009): Insecure interfaces and APIs Malicious insiders Shared technology issues Data loss or leakage Service or account hijacking/hacking Bibliography Armbrust, M. et al., 2009. Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing. Technical Report. 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