[CST-2] Distributed systems

[Andrei Legostaev]

There seems to be an obvious problem with all distributed updates:

How do we tell whether a failure is at the host or at the link?  If we can't
tell then, for example, a host whose ethernet connector fell out with think
that "Everybody's Dead, Dave" and proceed to make updates to itself.

Even worse if a system is partitioned by a link failure - say a cable is cut
under the Atlantic and the UK segment thinks that everyoue in the US is down
and vice versa.

Was this problem addressed anywhere in the lectures/notes (perhaps we made
some assumption by which we don't have to worry about this)?

A