Software Architectures - Second Semester 2015-16 : Mid-Semester Test (EC- 2 Regular)

Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani

Work-Integrated Learning Programmes Division

Second Semester 2015-2016

Mid-Semester Test

(EC-2  Regular)

Course No.                  : SS ZG653
Course Title                : SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURES
Nature of Exam          : Closed Book
Weightage                   : 35%
Duration                      : 2 Hours
Date of Exam              : 27/02/2016    (FN)

Q.1.   A real-time system, through expected to be running all the time, needs to be stopped 5 times a day due to massive data-collection that requires cleaning and backup. The system needs to be restarted after 10 minutes interval each time. Compute the % availability of the system in a day. Clearly write any assumption that you taken.

                                                                                                                                         [4]

Q.2.   Consider a web portal built using J2EE based infrastructure. The system needs to be available 24x7 with small acceptable downtime. To ensure that the application is not choked with too many requests, you have decided to control the number of hits to this portal, if the number of hits exceeds a threshold. You have also decided to monitor the health of the server to ensure the availability. Identify at least 2 availability and 2 performance tactics that are suitable, and explain the reason in one line per tactic. 

                                                                                                                                        [8]

Q.3.    A camera based sensor module continuously tracks moving object's positions and streams the data to a robot control module. The robot control module triggers an action only if the image quality is reasonable and the different between the received position data and the recently registered data is > a threshold. Describe the module dependency structure and the component and hardware allocation structure for this problem. The structure should be described using UML. Explain what should be correct dependency on the sensor.

                                                                                                                          [2+3+2=7]

Q.4.   Identify at least three differentiating features with examples between "Architectural Pattern" and a "Design Pattern".

                                                                                                                                       [3]

Q.5.   Explain the terms (i) Architectural Pattern, (ii) Reference Model and (iii) Reference Architecture. How they are related with each other? 

                                                                                                                                       [6]

Q.6.   Explain   the various step(s) required to implement a Layered Architectural pattern. Explain an efficient variation of the layer pattern where the client call to a layered system can be responded faster. 

                                                                                                                               [5+2=7]

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