Introduction to Distributed Systems
Reykjavik University

Autumn 2007

Introduction

Today very few computer based system are being developed to work in isolation from other systems. Rather they are increasingly being integrated both at network and application level. The area of distributed systems has evolved during the last 2-3 decades, and in the last decade, the spreading of the Internet and intranets has made the area a central for the development of modern software. Today distributed systems are everywhere ranging from the world wide web to networks of embedded controllers in modern cars. There are several good reasons for developing and deploying distributed systems, often heard are: fault tolerance, better performance than by using single processor solutions, economics, and autonomy. However, distributed systems are very complex and require sophisticated computer science and technological solutions.

This course introduces distributed systems. It will explain how their basic properties differ profoundly from centralized and sequential systems, and how this difference has severe impacts on how we understand and develop such systems. The course will explain how distributed systems are structured, how they may be programmed and constructed, and will give a number of distributed algorithms for solving prototypical problems frequently occurring in distributed systems.

Contents

Introduction to distributed systems, examples, typical problems and challenges
Structure: Client/Server and Peer-to-Peer systems
Programming distributed systems: remote method invocation (Java RMI. / NET Remoting), event-based publish-subscribe, Linda
Clock Synchronization, synchronization of physical clocks, logical clocks
Distributed algorithms: Mutual Exclusion, Election, Reliable and ordered multicast
Data Replication
Examples: Distributed File Systems, Web-services, Grid-computing,
Practical programming assignment, implementation of distributed algorithms

Learning goals

The student must at the concluding examination be able to

document knowledge and overview of the involved topics and concepts within distributed systems
use correct professional terminology in speech and writing
document knowledge about the fundamental properties of distributed systems, their architecture, and explain their consequences on system behavior and design
describe/explain basic prototypical distributed problems and distributed algorithms to solve these,
compare and evaluate different distributed algorithms and solutions wrt. semantic guarantees/precision, performance and fault-tolerance properties
demonstrate skills in realizing/implementing simple distributed systems or algorithms typically in the form of a distributed application.

Amount: 3 ECTS (15 lectures)

Lecturer:

Brian Nielsen e-mail: bnielsen@cs.aau.dk

Teaching Assistant

Text Book:

Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg, "Distributed Systems- concepts and design" 4th edition, Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-321-26354-5

Course Plan (Subject to changes):

Lectures: 9.00 - 10.50 in room K-6. Exercises: 11.00 to 12:30 in room K-6

Lecture No.	Date	Topic	Slides
1	Mon 26/11	Introduction to Distributed Systems	intro.pdf
2	Tue 27/11	Programming Models I	cs.pdf
3	Wed 28/11	Programming Models II	dp2.pdf
4	Thu 29/11	Distributed File Systems	dfs.pdf
5	Thu 29/11 (13-16.30)	Peer2peer Systems	p2p.pdf squirrel.pdf
6	Mon 3/12	Clock Synchronization	clock.pdf
7	Tue 4/12	Distributed Mutual Exclusion	mutex.pdf
8	Wed 5/12	Multicast communication	mcast.pdf
9	Thu 6/12	Consensus and study-exercises	consensus.pdf
10	Thu 6/12	Study Exercise (No Lecture)
11	Mon 10/12	Replication	repl.pdf
12	Tue 11/12	Study Exercise (No Lecture)
13	Wed 12/12	Web Services	webserv.pdf
14	Thu 13/12	Introduction to Grid and Parallel Computing	grid.pdf
15a	Thu 13/12	Conclusions
15b

Resources and links

Text book Home page: Coulouris, Dollimore, Kindberg, "Distributed Systems- concepts and design" 4th edition, Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-321-26354-5
Text book hypertext references
Exam Information

Sincerely,

Brian Nielsen

Introduction to Distributed Systems Reykjavik University