CS 675 - Distributed Systems
Spring 2022
Nguyen Engineering Building 1103
Wednesday 4:30 - 7:10 pm

Dr. Songqing Chen
sqchen at gmu dot edu
703-993-3176
All course materials are available on course web page: http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~sqchen/courses/CS675S22/

Description

This course focuses on basic concepts underlying the design, implementation, and management of distributed systems. It covers fundamental topics in distributed systems, including but not limited to distributed system architectures, inter-process communication, distributed middleware, synchronization and coordination,  distributed agreement, concurrency control, replication, and fault tolerance.

Prerequisites

Readings

The textbook for this class is  Andrew Tannenbaum and Maarten van Steen, ``Distributed Systems: Paradigms and Principles'', Prentice-Hall, 3rd edition, version 3.01, 2017.  Additionally, the following books may be used as reference texts.

1.  G. Coulouris, J. Dollimore, T. Kindberg, “Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design,” 5th Edition, Addison-Wesley, 2012.
2.   K. Birman, "Reliable Distributed Systems: Technologies, Web Services and Applications,"  Springer Verlag, 2009.

Course Outline

• Introduction
  
• Distributed System Architectures
• Communication in Distributed Systems
• Distributed Middleware
• Client/Server Design Issues
• Distributed Synchronization & Coordination
• Consistency & Replication in Distributed Systems
• Fault Tolerance
• P2P Systems
• Cloud Computing
  

Projects

There will be several programming projects. The software required for these projects is available on the computers in the VS&E Lab.

Please NOTE

• If your code does not compile or run on the VSE Lab machine, you will get no credit.
• Late projects lose 20% credit and will not be accepted 3 days after due, unless under prearranged conditions.
• Projects are due at the start of the class, not during class.

Grading

• Labs: 30%
• Paper review: 10%
• Class participation: 5%
• Project: 25%
• Midterm exam: 15%
• Final exam: 15%

No early exams will be given. Missed/make-up exams are strongly discouraged and must be arranged with the instructor BEFORE the exam date with an official and verifiable excuse.

Exam Schedule

Mid-term: around mid March (date to be announced later)   Final exam:  Wednesday, May 11 (4:30 - 7:10 pm)

Academic Integrity

You are expected to abide by the University's honor code and the CS Department's Honor Code and Academic Integrity Policies during the semester, i.e., collaboration between students in different groups on an assignment is unacceptable. Any violation of the honor code will result in referral to the honor council.

NOTE: I will be using tools, e.g., MOSS , to detect plagiarism in the programming assignments.

Other Information

GMU Academic Calendar

Honor Code