Processes, Threads, Memory and Resources in Distributed Systems

Abstract

Multiple processors and shared memory are important paradigm for building a distributed system. For building applications, threads proves to provide better performance than processes. This paper presents some of basic requirements for building a distributed system. It looks at conflict arises due to requests to shared resources in distributed systems. The solution of these conflicts in a timely manner is important. Several models to resolve conflicts exist. Some appealing ones are discussed in this paper. With several copies of data at different sites, a reference on memory is required to leave the data consistent throughout the memory blocks. Changing one copy and leaving the other is unacceptable. The memory consistency model of shared memory multi-processor solve the problem, and influence both the performance and the programmability of the system.