Task distribution framework using Zookeeper : Using hierarchical state machines to design and implement Zookeeper recipes

Abstract: To develop a distributed system is not an easy task. Not only do we need to understand the problems that may arise and solve them, but also we need to know how to implement them. The first part of the thesis tries to build some general knowledge about distributed systems. The second part shows how to use the ZeroMQ library in order to create an actor library for C++ and how to use the Zookeeper service in order to implement reliable distributed systems. The main contribution of this thesis is a novel method which uses hierarchical extended state machines in order to improve how to model Zookeeper’s algorithms. As a proof of concept, an internet scale task distribution framework is described and prototyped. However, everything started in the reverse order. The purpose of the thesis was to create a task distribution framework, and things were discovered while trying to develop it.