TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Course Information
• Class Announcements
• Class Handouts
• Homework Assignments
• Class Projects
• Reading Assignments
• Plagiarism Links
• Interesting Links

Course Information

• Course Syllabus
• Additional syllabus information from the department
• Book Web Page
• Textbook Errata

Class Announcements

• [2/21] Exam 1 is scheduled for Monday, Feb 27th. You will have from 6-8:30pm to take the exam. You will be allowed 2 8.5"x11" sheets of papers with notes. I have made a study guide available.

Class Handouts

• Any handouts from class will be placed on the Canvas web page.

Homework Assignments

• Homework 4 Due: Monday, March 21st
• Homework 3 Due: Monday, February 21st
• Homework 2 Due: Monday, January 31st
• Homework 1 Due: Monday, January 24th

Class Projects

• Project Information
• Project List and Presentation Schedule (including titles, proposals, and papers)

Reading Assignments

• Recommended readings for Consensus (these papers will not be discussed in class but they may be helpful in studying for the exam):
  • Reaching Agreement in the Presence of Faults by M. Pease, R. Shostak, and L. Lamport, JACM, 27(2), April 1980, pp. 228-234.
  • The Byzantine Generals Problem by L. Lamport, R. Shostak, and M. Pease, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 4(7), July 1982, pp. 382-401.

• Recommended readings for Distributed Mutual Exclusion Algorithms (these papers will not be discussed in class but the first two may be helpful in studying for the exam):
  • An Optimal Algorithm for Mutual Exclusion in Computer Networks by Glenn Ricart and Ashok Agrawala, CACM, 24(1), January 1981, pp. 9 -17.
  • A sqrt(N) Algorithm for Mutual Exclusion in Decentralized Systems by M. Maekawa, ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 3(2), May 1985, pp. 145-159.
  • A Distributed Mutual Exclusion Algorithm by I. Suzuki and T. Kasami, ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 3(4), November 1985, pp. 344-349.
  • A Tree-Based Algorithm for Distributed Mutual Exclusion by K. Raymond, ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 7(1), February 1989, pp. 61-77.

• Recommended readings for Logical Clocks Feb 14th
  • Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System by Leslie Lamport, CACM, 21(7), July 1978, pp. 558-565.
• Reading for Remote Procedure Calls Feb 7th
  • Implementing Remote Procedure Calls by Andrew D. Birrell and Bruce Jay Nelson, ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 2(1), Feb. 1984, pp. 39-59.
• Read for January 31, 2022
  • Hints for Computer System Design
    Discussion Questions:
    • What is the main goal of this paper? The main idea?
    • What does the author say about system recovery?
    • What are two of the most important things you learned from this paper?
    • Do you think the ideas presented in this paper still apply today?
  • Your Computer is Already a Distributed System. Why isn't your OS?
    Discussion Questions:
    • Do you agree with the main premise in the paper that modern computers are inherently DS?
    • Where does the analogy of current computers being DS break?
    • What are NUMA machines?
    • What is your take-away after reading this paper?
• Read for January 24, 2022
  • How Robust are Distributed Systems by K.P. Birman.
    Discussion Questions:
    • What is the main theme of this paper? (Why do you think I had you read it?)
    • What are the common undesirable events in DS?
    • This is an old paper. Is it still valid? Do the principles listed in the paper still hold today?
    • How are you personally affected by DS?
    • What are some examples of technologies that were released but flawed?
    • Why is it difficult to predict the behavior of a DS?
    • What is encouraging complex, bad s/w?
    • What do *you* think are the major design issues in DS today?
    • What is your reaction to the statement "Interconnection is a good thing"?
  • A Note on Distributed Computing by Jim Waldo, et. al.
    Discussion Questions:
    • What are the two schools of thought for designing DS?
    • Describe the critical differences between local and remote programming.
    • What is partial failure?
    • Is network transparency a good thing or a bad thing?
  • Distributed Computing Economics by Jim Gray
    Discussion Questions:
    • Why is SET@Home a good idea?
    • Why is Napster a great deal?
    • What is your take-away after reading this paper?
  • Efficient Reading of Papers in Science and Technology A brochure by Michael Hanson and Dylan McNamee that gives some common sense advice about how to effectively read technical papers.

Plagiarism Links

• Student guide to avoid plagiarism McGill Univ
• Plagiarism Tutorial from Rutgers (Flash required)
• Quoting and Paraphrasing from the Writing Center at the Univ. of Wisconsin
• A Guide to Ethical Writing by Miguel Roig. In particular, pay attention to the sections on paraphrasing. There is a quote on this page (from Booth, Columb, and Wms) as follows:
  "You plagiarize even when you do credit the author but use his exact words without so indicating with quotation marks or block indentation. You also plagiarize when you use words so close to those in your source, that if your work were placed next to the source, it would be obvious that you could not have written what you did without the source at your elbow."
  This is a good rule of thumb to follow when writing your papers.