COS-418, Fall 2017: Distributed Systems

Latest Announcements

1/9: Final exam on 1/19 at 1:30-4:30pm in room CS104.

10/17: Midterm on 10/27 at 10-11:30 or 11-12:30 in room CS105.

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Overview

This course covers the design and implementation of distributed systems. Students will gain an understanding of the fundamental principles and techniques behind modern, reliable, and high-performance distributed systems.

Topics include the fundmanetals of naming and network communication, time, consistency models (eventual, strong, causal), replicated state machines, consensus, concurrency control and transactions, and various related topics. Modern techniques and systems employed at some of the largest Internet sites (e.g., Google, Facebook, Amazon) will also be covered.

Through programming assignments, students will gain practical experience designing, implementing, and debugging real distributed systems. Programming assignments will be time intensive and involve significant system design and programming in Go.

Prerequisite: COS 217 required. COS318, COS 333, and/or programming maturity recommended.

Information

• Lecture: Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:00am - 10:50am. Computer Science Building, Room 105
• Precepts:
  • P01: Friday 10:00-10:50 - Robertson 016
  • P02: Friday 10:00-10:50 - Friend Center 112
• Instructors::
  • Professors Michael Freedman, Kyle Jamieson
  • Office hours: Immediately following each lecture outside COS 105 (MF); Monday 4:00 PM, COS 305 (KJ)
  • Preceptors Charlie Murphy, Andrew Or
    • Office hours: TBA
  • Lab TAs: TBA
• Grading: Grading is based on a midterm (20%), a final exam (25%), programming assignments (50%), and class participation (5%).
• Questions: Please use the class Piazza site.