Distributed Retail Store Chain

1
Distributed Retail Store Chain

• Building a Hierarchical Distributed
• Retail Store Network
• By
• Harbrinder Dhanjal
• Reejo Mathew
• Ashish Laroiya

2
System Architecture

• Advantages
• Hierarchical Management Structure
• Better Utilization of Available Resources
• Distribution of responsibility
• Certain level of transparency at each level
• Easier to add/delete stores at any level
• Scalability
• Ensures High Reliability

3
Requirements and Features

• High Availability
• Two servers at each node, Primary and Backup
• System capable of handling one failure
• Each node is aware of what is below it

4
Requirements and Features

• Performance
• Queries are guaranteed to be answered ASAP
• If both servers fail, query times out, so client
  is not left waiting
• Slow propagation used to transfer inventory
  information upstream, which doesnt interfere
  with the user queries which are given priority

5
Requirements and Features

• Dynamic Nature
• New stores, zonal offices and regional offices
  can be added or deleted
• Stores, zonal offices and regional offices can be
  reassigned
• We are assuming a fixed National office
• National office has information about all the
  entities of the system

6
Implementation

• Client/Server
• Java
• Communication
• Java RMI
• RMI extends the Java Object model beyond the
  single Virtual Machine address space
• RMI uses object serialization to convert objects
  into byte-streams for transport, hence allowing
  the developers to concentrate on clean system
  design
• Databases
• Normal text files easy to work with

7
Implementation

• Client
• Single universal implementation of the client
  that can be used at any level.
• Based on the type (retail store, zonal, regional
  or national office), some interfaces are
  enabled/disabled

8
Implementation

• Server
• Three different implementations of the server
• Administrative Server
• Creating/reassigning entities
• Exchanging messages, databases
• Replicating databases
• Transferring inventories

9
Implementation

• Store Server
• Adding/deleting items/inventories
• Selling items
• Changing the price
• Replying to queries
• Employee Server
• Adding/removing employees
• Payroll
• Replying to queries

10
Limitations

• If both servers fail, upstream queries fail
• Caching not implemented
• Functional UI, no fancy GUI