UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON COMP2207W1

SEMESTER 2 EXAMINATIONS 2018/19

DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS

Duration 90 minutes (1.5 hours)

Student ID:
This paper is a WRITE-ON examination paper.

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the paper. Arithmetic Double
Question Mark checked Marked
All answers should be written within the A1
designated boxes in this examination paper and
sufficient space is provided for each question. A2
A3
If, for some reason, space is required to complete
or correct an answer to a question, use the A4
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the question. Clearly indicate which question the
answer corresponds to. A6
A7
No credit will be given for answers presented
elsewhere and without clear indication of to what A8
question they correspond. Blue answer books A9
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B1
Answer ALL questions in Section A and only
TWO questions in Section B. B2
B3
Section A carries 50% of the total marks for the
exam paper.

Section B carries 50% of the total marks for the

exam paper.

Total:

Only University approved calculators may be used.

A foreign language dictionary is permitted ONLY IF it is a paper version of a direct ‘Word to
Word’ translation dictionary AND it contains no notes, additions or annotations.
27 page examination paper
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 SECTION A COMP2207W1

Answer ALL questions

A1 PC1 (192.78.1.3) pings another PC2 (192.168.1.4) on the same LAN, which it
has never connected to before. Explain which network layer finds PC2 and how
it communicates the packet to the correct IP.
[5 marks]

A2 PC1 needs to connect to a server newthing.com - which it has never connected

to before. Explain how PC1 obtains the IP address of the server.
[5 marks]

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Additional space. Do not use unless necessary. Clearly mark corresponding question.

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A3 TCP uses mechanisms to allow network equipment to moderate the flow of
traffic. Describe how this works:
[5 marks]

A4 Explain the purpose of the default router that is provided to a machine when it
gets its IP address.
[4 marks]

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Additional space. Do not use unless necessary. Clearly mark corresponding question.

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A5 How can the DNS system be attacked? Give an example of such an attack.
[6 marks]

A6
What is a DMZ and why is it used in networks? You can include a sketch of a typical
network with a DMZ.
[4 marks]

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Additional space. Do not use unless necessary. Clearly mark corresponding question.

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A7 Name two advantages of using IPv6 in the network.
[6 marks]

A8 How is the domain name southampton.ac.uk delegated to the University?

What is the advantage of this delegation?
[5 marks]

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Additional space. Do not use unless necessary. Clearly mark corresponding question.

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A9 Explain why the newer HTTP/2 protocol defines the use of UDP packets.
[5 marks]

A10 Draw a diagram to illustrate the three-way TCP handshake, labelling the
packets
[5 marks]

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SECTION B

Answer TWO out of THREE questions

B1 (a) Describe the key issues that should be taken into consideration when
placing services on available infrastructure and give an example of one
strategy that may be used to manage services with high demand.
[5 marks]

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B1 (b) You are asked to design the service and communications infrastructure for a
new building. The building will have various kinds of sensors installed
including temperature, carbon dioxide and smoke. These deliver data streams
to servers that monitor the environment in various parts of the building.
People within the building can use a mobile App to receive information about
the environment within their room, or the building as a whole. Users should be
able to specify their own information requirements, and the system should
push emergency alerts to users. Describe in detail the models of
communication, types of services and information that would be required to
build this system. You should include an architecture diagram.
[14 marks]

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Additional space. Do not use unless necessary. Clearly mark corresponding question.

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(c) State whether the two-phase commit protocol can handle the situation in
which a participant crashes after it has voted “Yes”. Explain how this works or
give a clear explanation for why it is not robust to this failure case.
[6 marks]

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B2 Consider the diagram below showing three processes communicating with
each other. Time runs from left to right.

a b
P1

c
P2
d

P3
e f

(a) Annotate (on the figure above) the six events of send/receive in each process
with vector clock values.
[3 marks]

(b) Name two concurrent send events in the diagram.

[1 mark]

(c) Name two send events in the diagram that occur in different processes and
are in the happened-before relation.
[1 mark]

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(d) Define the leader election problem and give two examples of distributed
applications that require a leader election algorithm.
[5 marks]

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(e) Outline a leader election algorithm that tolerates failures, explaining how the
properties typically required of such an algorithm are achieved. State any
assumptions required by your algorithm.
[15 marks]

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B3 (a) Explain the CAP Theorem and discuss the differences between AP and
CP systems.
[5 marks]

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(b) Give an example of an AP or CP system, describe how it works and
explain why it is considered AP or CP.
[10 marks]

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(c) Consider a distributed data storage where data is replicated among a
number of server nodes. All the read and write requests sent by clients
are received by one specific server node, referred to as the primary.
The primary processes all the requests it receives in a sequential
fashion and dispatches them to the other server nodes. If the primary
fails, requests are no longer served until the primary is restored.
Otherwise, if any other server node fails, or if the primary cannot
communicate with all the other server nodes, requests are still served
as long as the primary can communicate with a majority of server
nodes. Discuss the properties of such a distributed data storage with
respect to the CAP Theorem, i.e. explain whether it is an AP or CP
system and why.
[10 marks]

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