University of Helsinki Department of Computer Science
 

Department of Computer Science

Department information

 

582417 Distributed Systems (4 cr)

News

Position in Curriculum

This is a master-level course in Computer Science. The course is obligatory for those who intend to specialize in the area of "Distributed Systems and Data Communication".

Goal

The course intends to give insight into the main concepts and design principles related with distribution. Goals, challenges, problems, and various solutions are presented and discussed. The emphasis is on concepts and principles, not on practical implementations.

The learning goals of the course are listed in a separate table (available only in Finnish).

Course Prerequisites

The students are expected to master the contents of the courses Operating Systems, Concurrent Systems, and Introduction to Data Communication.

The prerequisities concretely include for example the following:

Methods for Achieving Credit

The course can be taken either through participating in a lecture course or through a final exam (exam dates for both the lecture course and final examination: see exam dates).

To pass the lecture course you need to

You need minimum 30 points to pass with a minimum of 16 points in the exam. With 50 points you will get a 5. To take a course you have to register yourself through the ILMO system at http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/opiskelu/ohjeet/ilmoittautuminen-en.htm

Lecture Course
The lecture course is given every year, and it involves


If you do not understand Finnish you may have to do a bit more independent work. You should acquire a textbook (the slides are just an extended list of contents!), read it to keep pace with the lectures, do most of the homeworks for each problem set, attend all practice sessions, and weekly check that you master all the preceding material.

Final Examination

Final examinations are organized typically four times a year. If you want to take a final examination in English you have to inform the instructor about this one week before the examination (in addition to the normal registration). Notice that a "course examination" and a "final examination" are two different things: in order to participate in a course examination you also must have participated in the corresponding practice sessions.

List of Contents

  1. Distributed systems
  2. System components
  3. Interprocess communication
  4. Synchronization: time, coordination and agreement
  5. Consistency and replication
  6. Fault tolerance

Course Material

Slides and Exercises

Lecture slides available in this directory

Exercises will be made available in this directory.


Jussi Kangasharju Last modified: Thu Jan 7 11:30:51 EET 2010