Finger Protocol

Phase 1

You can learn a lot about the design of client-server protocols by reviewing the implementation of one. And you can develop an even greater understanding by extending or updating that implementation.

For this Assignment, you will modify an existing client-server protocol to implement the Internet's finger protocol.

To prepare:

• Download the existing program contained inEcho.zip. This file unzips into a NetBeans project that includes the source code for two Java programs, a client program, and a server program. The two programs implement the Internet's echo protocol.
• Start up NetBeans. Open the Echo project you just downloaded and unzipped.

Modify the client and the server so that they implement the Internet's finger protocol. The response from the server does not need to reflect actual user data, but you must base the response on the name provided in the clients request.

Phase 2

Server programs are rarely implemented as non-threaded applications, even though that is how you implemented your previous server application. Servers would not be able to provide the necessary throughput unless they used threading to allow for I/O to occur concurrently with servicing client requests.

For this Assignment, you will modify your finger server program from Phase 1 to use threads. The server should activate a new thread to process each incoming client request, thus allowing client requests to be processed concurrently.

To prepare:

• Start up NetBeans.
• Open your implementation of the finger protocol from Phase 1.

Modify your finger server program to use threads. The server should activate a new thread to process each incoming client request, thus allowing client requests to be processed concurrently.

In addition, write a 5- to 7-page paper documenting the changes that you made and analyzing the impact the changes will have on the overall throughput and latency of the server.

Include in your paper responses to these questions:

• What other solutions might you consider in order to increase throughput and reduce latency?
• Which solution do you consider to have the better trade-off between performance and complexity?
• Which solution do you consider to have the better application of modularity, abstraction, hierarchy, and layering?