Page type: course

CS 380D : Distributed Computing I;CS 380D : Distributed Computing I;Spring 1996;Instructor : Lorenzo Alvisi;Teaching Assistant : Rajeev Joshi;Contents; Office Hours & Locations; Mechanics; Required Textbook; Course Content; Grading; Problem Sets; Information pertaining to the final exam; Suggested Solutions to the Midterm Exam; Newsgroup; (utexas.class.cs380d);Instructional Staff;Lorenzo Alvisi, Taylor Hall 4.122, Phone: 471-9792;Office Hours: Tuesdays, 10:00-12:00;;Rajeev Joshi, UA-9 #4.108D , Phone: 471-9756;Office Hours: Mondays and Thursdays, 2:00-4:00 pm.;Other meetings with Lorenzo and Rajeev can be arranged by appointment.;Mechanics;I expect that 2/3 of the classes will cover material from the required;textbook; the remainder will come from other sources (i.e. papers,;other textbooks). References to such sources will be given in class;at the appropriate time.;Lectures: 9:00-10:30 Monday and Wednesday, in Robert Lee Moore Hall;5.124.;The newsgroup for the class is;utexas.class.cs380d.;Required Textbook; Distributed Systems, Second Edition, S. Mullender (editor), ACM;Press, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading MA, 1994.;Course Content;CS380 covers abstractions that have proved useful or are expected to;be useful for designing and building tomorrow's distributed;systems. These include:; global states (cuts, logical and vector clocks, causal message;delivery, global property detection); message logging and checkpointing; replication management (state machine approach, primary backup;approach); agreement protocols (Byzantine agreement, ordered multicast); group programming (techniques and applications); distributed file systems (caching, disconnected operations); time services (Byzantine clock synchronization, NTP); security (encryption, authentication, security in group programming);We will integrate the discussion of the general principles with the;presentation of case studies that exemplify how such principles;have been used to design and implement real systems.;Other topics, depending on time and interest, will be presented by me;or by some of you (the size of the class does not allow all of you to give a;presentation). Such topics may include:; distributed shared memory; distributed objects; kernel support for distributed systems; weak consistency for replica management; protocols for electronic commerce; protocols for wide-area networks;Grading;There will be 4 or 5 written homework assignment. Solutions will be;graded F, B, or A. Any solution that demonstrates a credible effort on;behalf of its authors (whether the solution is right or wrong) will;receive a B or better.;Collaboration on homework assignment by up to three students is;permitted and encouraged, but not required. When there is such a;collaboration, a single solution should be submitted for;grading, with the names of the collaborators. Other collaborations;will be considered violations of Academic Integrity.;There will be a written, take-home midterm examination, for which no;collaboration will be allowed.;There will be no final exam. Each student however will be required to;write a final paper (about 20 pages) that surveys one of the issues;that we have discussed in class. A list of suggested topics will be;distributed in class on Monday 4/8. The paper is due at the start of;the last class, Wednesday 5/1: hence, you will have 4 weeks to;complete the paper.;You can also team up with a colleague and prepare one or two;lectures on a topic not previously covered in class. If you choose;this option, you and your colleague will only be required to write a;single survey paper of about 20 pages. I warmly encourage you to;consider volunteering for a presentation: it will give you an excellent;opportunity to improve your communication skills.;Problem Sets;In this and all subsequent problem sets, you should;conform to the following general guidelines:; ``Prove'' and ``show'' are synonymous. A precise proof is;required when you are asked to ``prove'' or ``show'' something.; To show that something is impossible, you have to give a proof that;makes it clear that the problem cannot be solved, no matter what the algorithm;is. It is insufficient to show that a particular algorithm does not work.; Any algorithm that you develop must be accompanied by a proof of;correctness, unless you explicitly told otherwise.; Due: Mon, 5 Feb 1996;Problem 1; The snapshot protocols discussed in class and in the;textbook assume that communication channels are FIFO. Derive a;snapshot protocol for an asynchronous system that does not depend on;the FIFO assumption, and prove it correct (i.e. prove that the;protocol produces a consistent global state). You may assume that at;most one snapshot is being computed at any point during a run.; Note: The book contains a reference to a paper by Mattern that;contains a solution to the problem. I urge you to resist the;temptation to solve the problem by visiting the library...;Problem 2; Taking the snapshot of a distributed computation is a;general technique for computing stable global predicates. More;efficient protocols can be derived for computing specific predicates,;that are often conceptually simpler and more efficient (in terms of;the number of messages they exchange) than a snapshot-based solution.;In this problem you are required to derive such a ``specialized'';protocol for detecting a deadlock in an asynchronous distributed;system. Ideally, your protocol would not need a centralized monitor;process, and would have a message cost of O(n), where n;is the number of processes in the distributed system (a monitor-based;snapshot protocol for detecting deadlock has a cost of O(n*n)).;The suggested solutions to these problems are now;online. This link points to the postscript file.; Due: Wed, 28 Feb 1996, 0900;This link points to the postscript file;describing the second homework assignment.;The final exam;The assignment constituting the final exam is due by 5 p.m., Friday;May 3, 1996.;This link points to the;Postscript file describing the assignment.;If you have questions, feel free;to send email to Lorenzo or to; Rajeev .;If you have ideas on improving this page, please send your;suggestions to; joshi@cs.utexas.edu;Rajeev Joshi, last updated 11 Apr 1996;