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A

Section A: Long Answer Questions

Attempt any TWO questions.

3 questions·10 marks each
1long10 marks

What is fault tolerance? Explain failure models, the use of redundancy, and the concept of agreement in faulty systems (Byzantine generals problem).

fault-tolerance
2long10 marks

Explain clock synchronization in distributed systems. Discuss Lamport's logical clocks and vector clocks with examples, and describe how the happened-before relation orders events.

clock-synchronizationlogical-clock
3long10 marks

What is distributed mutual exclusion? Explain the centralized, token-ring and Ricart-Agrawala (distributed) algorithms, comparing them in terms of message complexity and fault tolerance.

mutual-exclusion
B

Section B: Short Answer Questions

Attempt any EIGHT questions.

9 questions·5 marks each
4short5 marks

What is a distributed system? Explain the goals and characteristics of a distributed system.

characteristics
5short5 marks

Explain Lamport's logical clock with an example.

logical-clock
6short5 marks

What is a Remote Procedure Call (RPC)? Explain its working with a diagram.

rpc
7short5 marks

Differentiate between centralized and distributed mutual exclusion algorithms.

mutual-exclusion
8short5 marks

Explain distributed deadlock detection. What is a wait-for graph?

deadlock
9short5 marks

Explain the Bully algorithm for electing a coordinator.

election
10short5 marks

What are the different kinds of transparency in a distributed system?

transparency
11short5 marks

What is middleware? Explain its role in a distributed system.

middleware
12short5 marks

Explain Cristian's algorithm for physical clock synchronization.

clock-synchronization