Instructor: Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau
When: MWF 2:30 - 3:45
Where: 1207 CS
Office: 7375 CS
Office Hours: By appointment
Mailing
list archive
News
- [Tue Mar 1 14:10:40] You can now sign up
for a project meeting for Thursday, March 3rd.
- [Mon Jan 31 14:25:59] Class is now officially held in CS
1325.
- [Mon Jan 24 09:59:52] On Wednesday, Jan 26 we will all
attend the VMWare
talk in Room CS 2310. There is no write-up due for this class.
- [Tue Jan 18 10:30:12] Our first meeting on Wednesday, Jan
19 will be very short -- only about 30 minutes.
Overview
Welcome to the graduate distributed systems class!
In this course, you will learn about the theory and practice of
distributed systems. The work in this course will have two
components: reading papers and a research project.
Readings
This semester, our reading will focus on the most recent research in
distributed systems. Specifically, we will be reading papers from the
last few years of the two top systems conferences: Symposium on
Operating Systems Principles (SOSP) and Operating Systems Design and
Implementation (OSDI). We will also read a few of the most classic
distributed system papers to fill in some necessary background. The
complete list of papers is available here
These papers assume that you already know the relevant background
in the operating systems literature. Therefore, I expect that you
have already taken CS736 (Graduate Operating Systems) before taking
this course; if you have not, then please see me on the first day of
class.
During class, you will all be expected to participate in our
discussion. We will not be having any exams in this course;
therefore, your grade will be partially based on your paper write-ups
and on your class participation.
To help make our discussions more interesting, you are expected to
read each paper before class. To ensure this, before each
class you must e-mail me a short write-up. Your write-up should
answer the question "What do you think is the most interesting (or
most relevant or most important) contribution of the research
described in this paper?" Your write-up should be approximately two
to three paragraphs. Your e-mail should be in plain text (no
attachments) and the subject should be "739: [keyword for paper]"
where [keyword for paper] is the description I used in
the Lecture Schedule.
Projects
A major portion of this course is to work on an interesting
research project. You will work on this project with one other
project partner. I will have a list of
suggested projects available later in the semester. At the end of
the semester, you will both present your work to the class and write
up your results.
