Your systems. Working as one.

Top 10 Ways to Mess Up your Distributed System

Stan Schneider, PhD

Distributed Systems Experience

Trend: Scale

• More things producing and consuming data

• Greater volume of data• System of systems

integrationSystem of systems

Problem

By the time you find out if your infrastructure is good, it’s too late

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Top 10 Ways to Mess Up Your Distributed System

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Gloss over your data model

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Who uses the FACE Data Model?

System IntegrationFACE Definition (Standards)

Software Development

OTS Portable

Components

Core Data Model

Compliant To

System Data Model

Integrator

Definitions

Associations

Data Descriptions

Packaging

Constraints

Proposed Updates

Supplier Develops

Use

s

Misunderstand your data flow

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Data Flow Models

Point-to-Point Client/Server Publish/Subscribe

BrokeredESB

Daemon

Pub/Sub Messaging

Data-CentricPublish/Subscribe (DCPS)

Data-Centric

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Allow uncontrolled state

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Controlled State

• Data centric– Single source of truth– Known structure– Clear rules for access, changes, updates

• Technologies– Database– Data-centric middleware

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Ignore evolution

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Evolve Models & Behaviors

• Extensible infrastructure• Routing

– Connect data models: guarding, transformation• Service bus

– Match behaviors and patterns between components04/13/2023 13

Make all communications reliable

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Asset Tracking Example

Transactional design:• 12,000 tracks• 11 servers with 88 cores• Poor reliability and uptime• 1.5M SLOC• 2-8 years to develop• Custom, proprietary

DDS design:• 250,000 tracks• 80% of a single core• Full redundancy• 50k SLOC• Proof of concept in under a week• 100% standards based

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Save system integration strategy for the end

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Example: Naval Integration

• Systems of systems become exponentially complex

• Reduce coupling to reduce complexity

• Define interfaces early and carefully

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Think performance or scale isn’t important, or can be done “later”

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• Tuning a slow system doesn’t work

• Building a fast system takes design

Don’t anticipate business drivers

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Wind Power

• Grid control– Continuous performance

tuning of turbines

• Business control– Predictive and preventive

maintenance– Smart diagnostics– Production planning

Assume all implementations of the standard are the same

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Go it alone

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• Hawaii warning signs

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Believe there are only 10 ways to mess up

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RTI Overview

• Market Leader– Over 70% DDS mw market share1

– Largest embedded middleware vendor2

• Standards Leader– Supported Standards: DDS, JMS, RTPS, SQL,

WSDL/SOAP, HTTP/Rest, C, Java, C++, .net– OMG Board of Directors

• Maturity Leader– 15+ years of commercial availability– Diverse industries: defense, finance, medical,

industrial control, power generation, communications

– 500+ design wins– 350,000+ licensed copies– TRL 9

1Embedded Market Forecasters2VDC Analyst Report

Top 10 Ways to Mess Up

• Gloss over your data model• Misunderstand your data flow• Allow uncontrolled state• Ignore evolution• Make all communications reliable• Save system integration strategy for the end• Think performance or scale isn’t important, or can be done

“later”• Don’t anticipate business drivers• Assume all implementations of the standard are the same• Go it alone

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Summary

• Problem: By the time you find out if your infrastructure is good, it’s too late

• Solution: Proactively manage complexity– Complexity must exist somewhere; choose where– Data centric infrastructure pulls complexity out of

every application– Leverage proven technology & experience

Your Systems.Working as OneSM