CS 431/631/731 Distributed Computing

Course Syllabus – Fall 2006

Course Instructor

Purushotham Bangalore

Email: puri@cis.uab.edu

Office: CH 130

Phone: 205-934-8604

Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.

Other times by appointment only.

Course Session

Monday and Wednesday 5:30 PM – 6:45 PM Room CH 430 (Please note room change)

Course Homepage

http://www.cis.uab.edu/cs431/fall2006

Previous Semester Webpage

http://www.cis.uab.edu/cs431/summer2005

Prerequisite

CS 330 Computer Organization and Assembly Language Programming

Permission of Instructor

Teaching Assistant

Enis Afgan (afgane@uab.edu)

Office: CH 154 (CIS Undergraduate Lab)

Office Hours: Wednesday 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM and Thursday 10:00 AM - Noon.

Description

Three hours lecture.

Introduction to distributed systems, distributed hardware and software concepts, communication, processes, naming, synchronization, consistency and replication, fault tolerance, security, client/server computing, web technologies, enterprise technologies.

Textbook

Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Maarten van Steen. ISBN: 0-13-088893-1. Publisher: Prentice Hall. Copyright: 2002.

Grading Policy

CS 431 CS 631/731

Exams (2) 40% 30%

Homework (4-5) 40% 40%

Final Exam 20% 20%

Project/Term Paper 10%

Final Exam will be held on Wednesday, December 13 from 4:15 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.

Students enrolled in CS 631 and CS 731 will have additional questions on homework and exams.

Late Submission

1. All assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date. Any assignment turned in after this deadline is considered late. Late assignments will lose 10% for every 24-hour period, up to a maximum of 50% (weekends and holidays count as one 24-hour period). Any assignment submitted one week after the due date will receive a score of zero.

2. All assignments must be turned in even if they are late to pass this course. Failure to submit any assignments will result in a grade of ‘F’.

Class Attendance

1. Attendance is mandatory for this course. If you know you will be absent for a legitimate reason, let the instructor know. If you are sick bring a doctor's excuse or a written university excuse to resolve the absences. An absence has to be resolved as soon as possible - otherwise it will not be treated as an excused absence.

2. Students auditing this course are expected to attend the lectures. Auditing students with more than three unexcused absences will receive a failing grade.

3. There will be NO make-up exams. A student anticipating an excused absence from an exam should make arrangements in advance to sit for the exam at another time.

Academic Honesty

Students who plagiarize a computer program (or parts of a program), get others to write a program (or parts of a program), or are found cheating on a quiz/exam, will be reported for academic dishonesty. Anyone who is caught cheating will receive a 0 on a given test or assignment. If a second offense occurs, the student will receive an F in the class. This includes both the provider of the information as well as the receiver of the information. Any student who violates the university's academic honesty policy will be reported for academic discipline. All university and department policies related to students are included here by implication.

Add/Drop Policy

1. A student can drop the course through August 29, 2006.

2. A student can add the course through August 30, 2006.

3. A student can withdraw with a "W" by October 23, 2006. (Undergraduate)

4. A student can withdraw with a "W" by December 6, 2006. (Graduate)

5. For more details about add/drop policies check with Registration/Academic Records.

E-mail

Every student will be required to use his/her official email address that is blazerid@uab.edu. New students must login and configure their email addresses. For more details on obtaining blazerid and configuring email please see: http://www.uab.edu/blazerid. All email communications will be made using this address. Additional instructions or announcements will be sent by e-mail, so check your mail often. Also check the course webpage and the discussion forum for up-to-date information and announcements. Instructor will check email frequently, so e-mail is often the best way to contact the instructor.

Tentative Schedule
(TO BE UPDATED)

Date	Topic	Comments
Aug 23	Overview and Introduction
Aug 28 – 30	Chapter 1 – Introduction	Assign Homework-1 (multi-threaded client/server program)
Sep 4	No Class – Labor Day Holiday
Sep 6	Chapter 1 – Introduction
Sep 11 – 13	Chapter 2 – Communication	Homework-1 Due Assign Homework-2 (Java RMI program)
Sep 18 – 20	Chapter 2 – Communication
Sep 25 – 27	Chapter 5 – Synchronization
Oct 2 – 4	Chapter 5 – Synchronization Exam 1
Oct 9 – 11	Chapter 3 – Processes Developing Web-based Applications
Oct 16 – 18	Chapter 4 – Naming	Homework-2 Due Assign Homework-3 (multi-tier application)
Oct 23 – 25	Chapter 4 – Naming Chapter 6 – Consistency and Replication
Oct 30 – Nov 1	Chapter 6 – Consistency and Replication Web Services
Nov 6 – 8	Chapter 8 – Security	Homework-3 Due Assign Homework-4 (web services)
Nov 13 – 15	Exam 2 (Nov 13) Chapter 8 – Security
Nov 20	Chapter 10 – Distributed File Systems (NFS)
Nov 22	No Class – Thanksgiving Holiday
Nov 27 – 29	Chapter 7 – Fault Tolerance
Dec 4 – 6	Virtualization, Grid Computing Summary and Review	Homework-4 Due
Dec 13 4:15 – 6:45 PM	Final Exam

Resources

Java Developer's Almanac - Code Samples: http://java.sun.com/developer/codesamples/examplets/
Java RMI Tutorial: http://java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/rmi/RMI.html

Last Updated: August 28, 2006
by Purushotham Bangalore
Course Homepage: http://www.cis.uab.edu/cs431/fall2006

Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences The University of Alabama at Birmingham
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Phone: 205.934.2213 * Fax: 205.934.5473
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