Question 1

Define a distributed system.

Accepted Answer

A distributed system is a massive collection of independent, autonomous physical computers that mathematically communicate over a network to present themselves to the end-user as a single, coherent computing architecture.

Question 2

What is transparency in distributed systems?

Accepted Answer

Transparency is the absolute architectural goal of a distributed system to mathematically hide the physical distribution of resources, failures, and network latency from the end-user and application programmer.

Question 3

Briefly explain RPC (Remote Procedure Call).

Accepted Answer

RPC is a highly aggressive inter-process communication mechanism allowing a local program to execute a subroutine on a remote physical server as if it were a local mathematical function call.

Question 4

What is the difference between a stateful and stateless server?

Accepted Answer

A stateful server mathematically remembers historical client data between requests (maintaining session state), whereas a stateless server violently forgets the client immediately after executing a single request.

Question 5

What is a logical clock?

Accepted Answer

A logical clock (like Lamport timestamps) completely abandons absolute physical time (hours/minutes), instead using a rigid mathematical counter to strictly determine the chronological cause-and-effect ordering of distributed events.

Question 6

Define mutual exclusion in distributed systems.

Accepted Answer

Mutual exclusion is a strict mathematical algorithm that violently prevents multiple distributed processes from simultaneously modifying a shared resource (like a database row), preventing catastrophic data corruption.

Question 7

What are the advantages of a Distributed File System (DFS)?

Accepted Answer

A DFS (like Hadoop HDFS) provides massive fault tolerance, exponential read/write scaling, and location transparency by mathematically shattering and distributing files across thousands of cheap commodity hard drives.

Question 8

Explain process migration in distributed OS.

Accepted Answer

Process migration is the violent, real-time transfer of an executing program from one physical CPU to another across the network without mathematically stopping or resetting its execution state.

Question 9

What is load balancing?

Accepted Answer

Load balancing is the mathematical routing architecture used to violently distribute incoming network traffic equally across massive server clusters to prevent any single node from catastrophic overload.

Question 10

Define fault tolerance in distributed systems.

Accepted Answer

Fault tolerance is the absolute mathematical capacity of a distributed system to continuously and seamlessly execute its functions despite the catastrophic physical failure of individual hardware components or network links.

Question 11

Explain the different types of transparencies in a distributed system with ex…

Accepted Answer

A rigorous theoretical exposition on Distributed System Transparencies. Details how Access, Location, Migration, and Failure transparency mathematically shield the user from the chaotic underlying physics of the network.

Question 12

Discuss the client-server communication model using sockets.

Accepted Answer

An architectural breakdown of Socket Communication. Details the strict mathematical TCP/IP sequence of binding, listening, accepting, and bi-directional byte-stream execution between distributed Client and Server nodes.

Question 13

How does the Berkeley algorithm achieve clock synchronization?

Accepted Answer

A critical mathematical exposition of the Berkeley Algorithm. Explains how an active Time Daemon violently polls distributed nodes, calculates the average physical drift, and forces catastrophic time corrections to synchronize the cluster without relying on external atomic clocks.

Question 14

Explain the Bully Election Algorithm with an example.

Accepted Answer

A rigorous breakdown of the Bully Election Algorithm. Details the brutal hierarchical architecture where nodes with higher mathematical IDs violently overpower subordinate nodes to assume total control when the master crashes.

Question 15

Discuss the architecture of Sun Network File System (NFS).

Accepted Answer

An architectural exposition of the Sun Network File System (NFS). Details its stateless mathematical design, VFS integration, and how it violently abstracts remote server storage into local UNIX directory structures.

Question 16

Explain the various approaches for distributed deadlock detection.

Accepted Answer

A critical analysis of Distributed Deadlock Detection. Contrasts Centralized coordinators against fully Distributed Edge-Chasing algorithms to mathematically map and destroy cyclical dependency graphs across multiple physical servers.

Question 17

What are the primary design issues of a Distributed OS?

Accepted Answer

An exhaustive breakdown of the Primary Design Issues in a Distributed OS. Details the catastrophic architectural challenges of Transparency, Scalability, Fault Tolerance, and mathematical Clock Synchronization.

Question 18

Describe the communication protocols in distributed systems. Explain the laye…

Accepted Answer

A massive architectural exposition on Distributed Communication Protocols. Violently dissects the OSI 7-Layer model, contrasting the raw, lossy physics of the Physical/Data Link layers against the mathematically robust Session/Transport layers that enable RPC execution.

Question 19

Explain the mechanisms of Remote Method Invocation (RMI) in distributed compu…

Accepted Answer

An exhaustive theoretical breakdown of Remote Method Invocation (RMI). Violently contrasts the purely procedural nature of RPC against the massive Object-Oriented architecture of Java RMI, detailing the execution of Stubs, Skeletons, and distributed Garbage Collection.

Question 20

Discuss distributed mutual exclusion. Explain Ricart-Agrawala's algorithm for…

Accepted Answer

A definitive mathematical dissection of the Ricart-Agrawala Algorithm. Violently details how this fully distributed, decentralized mutual exclusion architecture uses Lamport logical clocks and a massive broadcast voting mechanism to mathematically guarantee lock safety without a centralized coordinator.

Question 21

Describe the principles of Distributed Shared Memory (DSM). Explain the vario…

Accepted Answer

A massive architectural breakdown of Distributed Shared Memory (DSM). Details how DSM violently abstracts physically separated RAM banks into a single logical address space, and critically exposes the catastrophic performance penalties governed by Strict vs. Sequential Consistency Models.

Question 22

Explain the Byzantine Generals Problem in detail. Discuss the conditions for …

Accepted Answer

An exhaustive mathematical dissection of the Byzantine Generals Problem. Violently details the absolute hardest fault-tolerance paradigm, proving mathematically that consensus requires $3m+1$ loyal nodes to survive $m$ traitorous, intentionally malicious servers.

Distributed Systems