CIS-325

Data Communications

Dr. L. G. Williams, Instructor

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Chapter Thirteen

Distributed Applications

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 Key Distributed Applications

➤ Electronic Mail
➤ Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
➤ Web-Based Applications

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 Public E-Mail

➤ Public is provided by a vendor, generally

via a dial-up network
➤ Messages can be sent to any other
registered user
➤ Gateway required to send messages to users
outside the system
➤ e.g. AOL, MCI Mail

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 Private E-Mail

➤ Integrated with the user’s computer system

➤ Can run on a central host, or as part of a
LAN environment
➤ Host examples: DEC All-In-One, IBM PROFS
➤ LAN examples: CC:Mail, QuickMail

➤ Owned and operated by an organization for

internal messaging requirements

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 Public vs. Private

➤ Features and services can be quite similar

➤ Private systems involve higher initial cost, low or no
transaction costs
➤ Public systems involve little initial cost, ongoing
transaction costs
➤ Private e-mail offers better integration with installed
systems
➤ Public systems offer wider range of delivery options

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 Internet E-Mail

➤ Does not fit directly into either category

➤ Transfer mechanism for exchanging mail
among systems, rather than a mail system
itself

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 Single System E-Mail

➤ Only allows users of a shared system to

exchange messages
➤ Each user has unique identifier and mailbox
➤ Sending a message simply puts it into
recipients’ box
➤ Recipient fetches or reads message when
desired

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 Multiple Systems E-Mail

➤ Distributed system enables mail servers to

connect over a network to exchange mail
➤ Functions split
➤ User agent handles preparation, submission, reading,
filing, etc
➤ Transfer agent receives mail from user, determines
routing, communicates with remote systems
➤ Interconnection requires standards

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 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
(SMTP)
➤ Standard for TCP/IP mail transfer, defined
in RFC 821
➤ Concerned addressing and delivery, not
content, with two exceptions
➤ Character set standardized as 7-bit ASCII
➤ Adds log information to message that indicates
message path

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 Basic E-Mail Operation

➤ User creates message with user agent

program
➤ Text includes RFC 822 header and body of
message
➤ List of destinations derived from header

➤ Messages are queued and sent to SMTP

sender program running on a host

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 SMTP Mail Flow
➤ SMTP server transmits messages to appropriate hosts via TCP
➤ Multiple messages to same host can be sent on one connection
➤ Errors handling necessary for faulty addresses and unreachable hosts

➤ SMTP protocol attempts to provide error-free transmission, but

does not provide end-to-end acknowledgement
➤ SMTP receiver accepts messages, places it in mailbox or
forwards

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 Limitations of SMTP and
RFC822
➤ Cannot transmit executables or binary files without
conversion into text through non-standard programs (e.g.
UUENCODE)
➤ Cannot transmit diacritical marks
➤ Transfers limited in size
➤ Gateways do not always map properly between EBCDIC and
ASCII
➤ Cannot handle non-text data in X.400 messages
➤ Not all SMTP implementations adhere completely to RFC821
(tabs, truncation, etc)

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 MIME (Multipurpose Internet
Mail Extensions)
➤ Intended to resolve problems with SMTP
and RFC822
➤ Specifies five new header fields, providing
info about body of message
➤ Defines multiple content formats
➤ Defines encodings to enable conversion of
any type of content into transferable form

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 Electronic Data Interchange
(EDI)
➤ Direct, computer-to-computer exchange of
business data
➤ Replaces use of paper documents
➤ Requires two participants to agree on
electronic format for the data
➤ Two parties within a company (depts)
➤ Companies and customers
➤ Multiple companies

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 Benefits of EDI

➤ Cost savings
➤ Speed
➤ Reduction of errors
➤ Security
➤ Integration with office automation
➤ Just-in-time delivery

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 EDI Layered Architecture

➤ Semantic Layer: describes the business

application (e.g. procurement)
➤ Standard Layer: X.12 from ANSI, EDIFCT
from UN
➤ Transport Layer: E-mail, Point to Point,
WWW
➤ Physical Layer: Dial-up lines, Internet, WANs

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 EDI v E-Mail

➤ EDI
➤ Typically no human
involvement in
processing the
information; interface
is software-to-software
➤ E-Mail
➤ Data not necessarily
structured for software
processing. Human-to-
software exchange is
usually involved on at
least one end.

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 World Wide Web

➤ Developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991 at

the European Particle Physics Laboratory
(CERN) to allow physicists around the
world to share information
➤ Marc Andreessen, employee at NCSA,
introduced the GUI Web browser, Mosaic,
in 1993.

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 World Wide Web Technology

➤ Based on the concept of hypertext

➤ Single interface to a variety of protocols and
standards to access the information on the Internet
➤ Has become the predominant Internet application
➤ 1993: annual rate of growth is 341,634%
➤ 1995: surpassed all other applications in
amount of data being transferred

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 World Wide Web Documents

➤ Documents have embedded selectable links

that point to other documents
➤ Documents can be text or non-textual
information such as audio, video, or
multimedia documents
➤ Multimedia nature of the web allows non-
text information to be embedded into
documents, not just linked separately
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 World Wide Web Functions

➤ Display HTML pages

➤ Retrieve files (often using FTP)
➤ Access Gopher sites
➤ Read newsgroups
➤ Search for information or people
➤ Display still images and video
➤ Listen to sound files
➤ Activate telnet connections

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 World Wide Web Operation

➤ Data stored on servers

➤ Users access data with browsers
➤ GUI browser (e.g, Mosaic, Netscape, Internet
Explorer, etc.) requires a direct Internet
connection (dial-up or LAN)
➤ Browser requests access to a page
➤ Server transfers copy of page to requestor

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 Uniform Resource Locator
(URL)
➤ provide a standard ➤ specify the three pieces of
means of locating information
Internet documents ➤ the protocol to be used (e.g., http,

➤ simple addressing
ftp, gopher, telnet, etc.)
➤ the server (and optional port)
scheme unifies a wide
➤ the file path to retrieve
variety of disparate
➤ e.g., http://www.rit.edu/~ellics/index.html
protocols http://www.itcs.com:80/elawley/
ftp://ftp.netscape.com/
telnet://wally.rit.edu/
gopher://gopher.cni.org/

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 HyperText Markup Language
(HTML)
➤ Derived from SGML (Standard Generalized Markup
Language)
➤ Uses tags to indicate formatting characteristics them
with a specific format
➤ Tags are defined functionally, not visually
➤ Tags can indicate a link to another document or
resource
➤ Tagged text can be displayed by choosing “View
Source” in most browsers
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 HyperText Transfer Protocol
(HTTP)
➤ the primary protocol used to distribute
information within WWW
➤ a “connectionless” protocol
➤ limited to one request per connection
➤ the connection is broken after each request

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