Distributed Systems
5
Networking and Services
Advanced studies
This course presents the basic concepts and solution principles of distributed systems. The main topics are synchronization, consistency, fault tolerance, distributed consensus, and security. The course considers different kinds of distributed systems, from modern warehouse-scale datacenters to wide-area, loosely-coupled distributed systems. The focus is on gaining an understanding on how modern distributed systems are designed and built and what are their theoretical underpinnings. The course covers the basic algorithms of distributed systems and the current state of research in the area. Course material: Largely based on research articles and supplemental material. Selected material from the book "Barroso, L. A., Clidaras, J. and Hölzle, U.: The Datacenter as a Computer¿. (book is available online)
| Year | Semester | Date | Period | Language | In charge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | autumn | 01.09-11.12. | 1-2 | English | Jussi Kangasharju |
Lectures
| Time | Room | Lecturer | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 10-12 | C222 | Jussi Kangasharju | 01.09.2014-16.10.2014 |
| Thu 10-12 | C222 | Jussi Kangasharju | 01.09.2014-16.10.2014 |
| Mon 10-12 | C222 | Jussi Kangasharju | 27.10.2014-11.12.2014 |
| Thu 10-12 | C222 | Jussi Kangasharju | 27.10.2014-11.12.2014 |
Information for international students
Note for students taking the separate exam on 19.9.2014: The exam is based on the old version of the course and covers the material from Fall 2013.
General
This course presents the basic concepts and solution principles of distributed systems. The main topics are synchronization, consistency, fault tolerance, distributed consensus, and security. The course considers different kinds of distributed systems, from modern warehouse-scale datacenters to wide-area, loosely-coupled distributed systems. The focus is on gaining an understanding on how modern distributed systems are designed and built and what are their theoretical underpinnings. The course covers the basic algorithms of distributed systems and the current state of research in the area.
Course format
The course is based on research articles which will be discussed in class and there will be very few traditional lectures in the course. The overall schedule is such that Monday sessions are for presentation and discussion about new material and Thursday sessions are intended as additional help with home exercises and basic skills like programming and writing.
News
Most news about the course will also be on Twitter with the hashtag #UnivHelsinkiCS_DS14.
Completing the course
There is no exam for the course, but the course has the following mandatory assignments:
- You need to complete 4 larger exercises
- You need to write and return a short essay about each of the articles we cover in the course
- You need to complete some smaller exercises about distributed algorithms (the exact number of exercises is still open)
All of the exercises are mandatory for passing the course. Each of the larger exercises will be given points 0-6 and all the others 0-3. The sum of your points will be used to determine your grade from the course on the usual 0-5 scale.
The home exercises have two due dates. The first two are due 19.10. and the second two are due 14.12. The articles are discussed on Monday sessions and the essays are due the day before the discussion. The due dates for the small exercises about the algorithms will be announced later.
All submissions via Moodle.
Literature and material
The material of the course is mainly research articles and other supplemental material. Links to these will be provided later on this page. Selected material from the book "Barroso, L. A., Clidaras, J. and Hölzle, U.: The Datacenter as a Computer". (Book is freely available online)
Slides
Slides from Monday 01.09. and Monday 08.09 are available from a shared folder:
- Introduction
- Systems reasearch (i.e., cows)
- Warehouse-scale computing