SWE 622 Distributed Software Engineering

SWE 622
Distributed Software Engineering

Fall Semester, 2008
Location: Robinson Hall B113
Time: Monday 7:20-10pm

Instructor Overview Textbook and Readings Grading Schedule Academic Integrity

Professor                    Sam Malek                     Electronic Mail: smalek@gmu.edu
                                                                          Office: 357, Science & Technology II
                                                                          Office Phone: +1-703-993-1677
                                                                          Office Hours: Mon 3-4pm or by appointment

Teaching Assistant     TBD                               Electronic Mail: TBD
                                                                          Office: TBD
                                                                          Office Hours: TBD

Overview

This course conveys key concepts for designing and building distributed software systems. The course is geared towards software engineers that work mostly at the application-level, but need to understand the features and limitations of existing middleware for distributed systems. Additionally, the course covers some research topics related to currently open problems. Specifically, some of the topic that will be covered are as follows: definition and scope of distribution, principles of communication and computation, software architectures of distributed systems, middleware systems, service discovery, quality of service, adaptive and self-* systems, mobility, security, and fault tolerance.

Textbook and Readings

Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms (2nd edition), Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Maarten Van Steen, 2007, ISBN 0-13-239227-5 (required)
Concurrency: State Models and Java Programs (2nd Edition), Jeff Magee and Jeff Kramer (recommended)
Supplemental papers (see the Schedule)

Grading

Class participation - 10%
Homework - 25%
Final exam - 30%
Project - 35%

Schedule

See the course website for more information

Academic Integrity

George Mason's policy concerning student conduct applies. Although students are encouraged to discuss the topics covered in class, all homework assignments, exams, and projects are to be completed individually, unless joint work is explicitly authorized by the instructor. If joint work is authorized, all contributing students must be listed on the submission. Any deviation from this is considered an Honor Code violation, and, as a minimum, will result in failure of the submission and, as a maximum, failure of the class.