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Distributed Systems
Lecturer: Dr J.M. Bacon
No. of lectures: 8
Prerequisite courses: Operating System Foundations, Digital Communication, Introduction to Security
Aims
The aims of this course are to study the fundamental characteristics of
distributed systems and their implications on software design;
their models and architectures; the design of distributed algorithms and applications.
Lectures
- Introduction.
Characteristics specific to distributed systems. Software
structure. Modelling, architecting and engineering distributed software.
- Time.
Physical and logical time. Event ordering. Clock synchronisation.
Message delivery ordering.
- Algorithms and application protocols. Replication
management. Strong and weak consistency. Asynchronous and synchronous
algorithms. Atomic commitment. Process groups. Election. Mutual exclusion.
- Naming.
Design of names, pure or hierarchical. Interpretation of names in a
context. Binding. Long-term consistency.
- Access control.
Capabilities in distributed systems. Role-based access control. Policy
expression and enforcement.
- Communication. Overview of synchronous, asynchronous and
event-based middleware. Web services.
- Storage.
Design issues for network-based storage services.
- Applications.
Pervasive computing environments: active office, home and city. Events,
composite events, mobility and location-tracking. Electronic health service.
Objectives
At the end of the course students should
- understand the fundamental properties of distributed systems and how
to design software to accommodate them
- understand some basic distributed algorithms and the assumptions on
which they are based
- for widely distributed and/or large scale systems, understand how
naming and access control can be designed
- understand the tradeoffs involved in selecting various styles of
middleware
- be aware of some emerging application areas, such as pervasive and
mobile computing.
Recommended books
* Bacon, J. & Harris, T. (2003). Operating systems: distributed and
concurrent software design. Addison-Wesley.
Tanenbaum, A.S. & van Steen, M. (2002). Distributed systems.
Prentice-Hall.
Coulouris, G.F., Dollimore, J.B. & Kindberg, T. (2001). Distributed
systems, concepts and design. Addison-Wesley (3rd ed.).
Mullender, S. (ed.) (1993). Distributed systems. Addison-Wesley
(2nd ed.).
Up: Easter Term 2004
Previous: Databases
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Christine Northeast
Thu Sep 4 13:12:26 BST 2003