Preamble:Introducing the Course

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Preamble Introducing the Course
Distributed Systems

• CSC 253
• Gordon Blair, François Taïani

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Introducing the Team

• Lecturing Staff
• Gordon Blair
• InfoLab21 Building, Room C15
• e-mail gordon_at_comp.lancs.ac.uk
• phone [phone]
• François Taïani
• InfoLab21 Building, Room C16
• e-mail francois.taiani_at_comp.lancs.ac.uk
• phone [phone]
• Guest Slots
• Paul Grace
• InfoLab21 Building, Room C21
• e-mail p.grace_at_lancaster.ac.uk
• phone [phone]
• Phil Greenwood
• InfoLab21 Building, Room C22
• e-mail p.greenwood_at_lancaster.ac.uk
• phone [phone]
• GTA Support

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Aims and Objectives

• To provide an understanding of the fundamental
  principles underpinning modern distributed
  systems including the client-server model, RPC/
  RMI, clock synchronisation, etc.
• To supplement this with studies of practical
  tools and techniques currently available in
  distributed programming, focussing in particular
  Java RMI and associated Java-based software.
• To be able to provided key non-functional
  properties such as scalability, dependability and
  security.
• To provide an insight into current research
  issues in the distributed systems community.

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Overall Syllabus
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Practical Work

• Assessment
• 70 examination, 30 coursework
• Design of the practical work
• Phase 1 (weeks 3-5)
• 2 hour practical each week on Java RMI and
  associated mechanisms including security
• Culminates in first milestone to retrieve your
  coursework from a secure RMI server (worth ??
  Marks)
• This work must be demonstrated and signed off in
  the practical session in week 5
• Phase 2 (weeks 6-10)
• Mini-project in RMI supported by weekly clinic
• Description to be obtained from the RMI server
  (as described above) but description will also be
  published at the start of week 6 for people who
  fail to complete phase 1
• Coursework organised with varying degrees of
  difficulty
• This work must be demonstrated and signed off in
  week 10

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Reading Material for the Course

• A Tanenbaum, A. van Steen, M., "Distributed
  Systems Principles and Paradigms", Prentice
  Hall, 2002. ISBN 0-13-088893-1.
• An excellent book on distributed systems from
  leading figures in this field
• The course will follow the material in this book
  quite closely and in particular will draw
  material from chapters 1-8 and 10
• B Coulouris, G., Dollimore, J., Kindberg, T.,
  "Distributed Systems Concepts and Design" (third
  edition), Addison-Wesley, 2001. ISBN
  0-201-61918-0.
• An equally strong book but perhaps not quite so
  up to date
• Excellent source for extra material/ second
  opinion on the subject

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Expected Learning Outcomes

• You should have a strong understanding of what is
  meant by a distributed system, why people are
  developing such systems, and what are their
  potential problems.
• You should understand the client-server paradigm
  and the role of middleware technology and be able
  to relate these to the concepts introduced in the
  practical stream.
• You should have a good understanding of RPC, its
  role in middleware, issues in its design (e.g.
  transparency), and how it is implemented.
• You should also be able to compare the RPC
  service with alternatives such as
  publish-subscribe or distributed shared memory.
• You should understand principles of clock
  synchronisation and also group communication in
  distributed systems and why these are fundamental
  underlying services.

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Expected Learning Outcomes (continued)

• You should understand the importance of
  scalability in distributed systems and also core
  techniques to build scalable services.
• You should be able to appreciate the security
  vulnerabilities in a modern distributed system,
  and general security principles to address such
  threats including cryptography and access control
  (with special focus on Kerberos).
• You should understand principles and protocols
  underlying dependable distributed computing
  including replication and consistency.
• You should be able to develop relatively complex
  distributed systems using Java RMI and should be
  aware of and able to use added value software
  such as JMS, Jini and EJB.
• You should have an awareness of the new
  developments in the field of distributed systems
  in such areas as mobility, P2P, etc.

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For More Information

• Web site for the course on the Intranet

http//info.comp.lancs.ac.uk/
Any questions before we get started..