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Distributed Systems important questionsMost repeated in SPPU papers

These 29 questions appeared in more than one SPPU Distributed Systems paper we have: 9 papers, from Feb 2023 to Nov 2025. The most-asked come first. Each one links to the papers it was asked in.

All Distributed Systems papers and notes

Repeated questions

Endsem questions (24)

  1. 4×asked

    Define External Data Representation, Marshalling and Unmarshalling. Discuss the three alternative approaches to XDR and marshalling.

    Nov 2025 ·May 2025 ·May 2024 ·Mar 2024

  2. 4×asked

    Explain the following in brief: i) Wearable devices ii) PVM iii) JINI

    Nov 2025 ·May 2025 ·Nov 2024 ·May 2023

  3. 4×asked

    Explain in brief, the following Distributed System monitoring tools: i) Nagios ii) Zabbix

    May 2025 ·Nov 2024 ·May 2024 ·May 2023

  4. 4×asked

    What are web services? Describe with a suitable diagram the general organization of the Apache web server.

    May 2025 ·Nov 2024 ·May 2024 ·May 2023

  5. 4×asked

    What is a Directory Service? What is the difference between DNS and x500? Describe in detail the components of X.500 service architecture.

    May 2025 ·Nov 2024 ·May 2024 ·May 2023

  6. 4×asked

    What is checkpointing in a distributed system? Explain the working of Coordinated checkpointing recovery mechanism.

    May 2025 ·Nov 2024 ·May 2024 ·May 2023

  7. 3×asked

    Describe the design of a peer-to-peer file sharing application designed to support very large multimedia files. How does the BitTorrent protocol operate?

    Nov 2025 ·May 2025 ·May 2023

  8. 3×asked

    Describe the Sun Network File System architecture in details.

    Nov 2025 ·May 2025 ·May 2023

  9. 3×asked

    Explain in brief following Microkernels i) CHORUS ii) Mach 

    Nov 2025 ·May 2025 ·May 2023

  10. 3×asked

    Explain in brief, the key features of Prometheus including data model, query language, or alerting rules.

    Nov 2025 ·May 2025 ·Nov 2023

  11. 2×asked

    Describe, using the appropriate diagram, how a web service is implemented in horizontal distribution using web server clusters.

    Nov 2025 ·Nov 2023

  12. 2×asked

    Discuss the two important reasons for wanting to replicate data and how does replication relate to scalability?

    Nov 2025 ·May 2025

  13. 2×asked

    What are the general characteristics of interprocess communication? What are various types of Synchronous and asynchronous communication in IPC? Why it is blocking receive has no disadvantages in Java.

    Nov 2025 ·May 2023

  14. 2×asked

    What is Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)? Explain the various SOA components. How does it differ from traditional software architecture?

    Nov 2025 ·Nov 2023

  15. 2×asked

    What is the distribution commit problem? Discuss how this problem is solved using the two-phase commit protocol with suitable diagram.

    Nov 2025 ·Nov 2023

  16. 2×asked

    Why Quality of Service Management is important in Distributed Multimedia Systems? Describe QoS manager responsibilities using suitable graphical representation.

    Nov 2025 ·Nov 2023

  17. 2×asked

    What is a primary-based protocol in a consistency protocol? Explain the working of replicated write protocols with active replication.

    May 2025 ·May 2023

  18. 2×asked

    What is the purpose of Message Passing Interface? Illustrate the architectural model for MPI using send and receive primitives.

    May 2025 ·Nov 2024

  19. 2×asked

    Explain in brief, the two places of client-side web caching? Explain cooperative caching with suitable diagram.

    Nov 2024 ·Nov 2023

  20. 2×asked

    Provide an overview of Mach and CHORUS microkernels. How are memory management techniques used to avoid physical copying of data in Mach and CHORUS? 

    Nov 2024 ·Nov 2023

  21. 2×asked

    What are the key design issues for distributed file systems? Describe the requirements for distributed file systems.

    Nov 2024 ·Nov 2023

  22. 2×asked

    Explain with an application (e.g., Travel Booking Service) various key components of Service Oriented Architecture.

    May 2024 ·May 2023

  23. 2×asked

    What are two primary reasons for replication? Explain the causal consistency model with suitable example using distributed shared database.

    May 2024 ·May 2023

  24. 2×asked

    What are the key issues in Replica Management? Explain the following with respect to content replication and placement with suitable diagram. i) Permanent Replicas ii) Server-Initiated Replicas iii) Client-Initiated Replicas

    Nov 2023 ·May 2023

Insem questions (5)

  1. 2×asked

    Explain what is meant by distribution transparency and give examples of different types of transparency.

    Mar 2024 ·Feb 2023

  2. 2×asked

    What are the entities that are communicating in the distributed system? Discuss in brief, how do they communicate using communication paradigm? 2

    Mar 2024 ·Feb 2023

  3. 2×asked

    What are the two architectural styles stemming from the role of individual processes? Discuss in brief, the placement strategies in Peer-to-Peer architecture.

    Mar 2024 ·Feb 2023

  4. 2×asked

    What is DCE? Discuss in brief, the various components of DCE.

    Mar 2024 ·Feb 2023

  5. 2×asked

    What is the concept of middleware? Explain in brief, Message Oriented and Content Centric Middleware.

    Mar 2024 ·Feb 2023

Questions count as repeated when their wording matches closely across papers. Numericals that depend on a figure are left out, since the figure changes from paper to paper.