CS-736: Advanced Operating Systems

Basic Information

Notes

Short Cuts

Overview

The course will center around three basic entities: readings, assignments, and a final project. For most every class, you will have to read one or more papers (as assigned), which we will then discuss in class. You will also have to think and write a little bit about each paper. During the first half of the semester, you will also have to perform a few mini-assignments, just to get warmed up for the project. Then, finally, you will work on your projects, which is the real key to the class: a mini-research project on the topic of your choice. Though we will provide some suggestions, you are encouraged to come up with a topic of your own (after all, that is what research is all about). More details will be available below in the weeks to come.

09/03	Labor day	09/05	First class: Show up	09/07	Cancelled (Retreat)
09/10	No class	09/12	THE (including appendix) and Nucleus	09/14	Pilot and Observations
09/17	No class	09/19	Exo(1) and Exo(2)	09/21	Disco
09/24	No class	09/26	Nooks	09/28	FFS
10/01	No class	10/03	LFS	10/05	IRON
10/08	No class	10/10	Anticipatory	10/12	RAID
10/15	No class	10/17	Monitors and Mesa	10/19	Lottery
10/22	No class	10/24	Scheduler Activations	10/26	Flash
10/29	No class (exam at night)	10/31	Vax/VMS	11/02	Multics
11/05	Vmware	11/07	No class	11/09	No class
11/12	RPC	11/14	Locus	11/16	MapReduce
11/19	No class	11/21	NFS AFS	11/23	Thanksgiving
11/26	No class	11/28	GFS	11/30	PAST
12/03	No class	12/05	Rethink the Sync	12/07	Bugs and Rx
12/10	Class wrap-up (exam at night)	12/12	No class	12/14	Presentations

Readings

General Papers
Auxiliary Papers
Advice Papers

1 - Read the assigned papers (as in the schedule) before class. This is a must!

2 - Form a discussion group. You should have about four people in your group, and discuss each paper sometime before class meets. When you have formed a group, please send me email with a list of group members.

3 - Answer the question posed for each paper. Your individual write-up should consist of a short-essay answer to the question(s) posed. The write-up should not exceed half of a page in length. The list of questions to answer is available here. Turn in your write up via email to me (remzi@cs) before 10am on the day of the class where we discuss the paper, with the class and date in the subject line (e.g., 736 Reading 9/12). Late write-ups will automatically receive a null score. Write-ups should be in plain text and not some fancy encoding, for the professor's viewing pleasure. Write-ups not in plain text will be returned to the sender ungraded (but unharmed).

The reading load will be heavy, so make sure not to fall behind.

Project

The final project is the main focus of the course. You are expected to perform work which could eventually be suitable for publication in a major operating systems conference; indeed, each year one or two projects end up becoming published works in some major OS conference! In general, people should work in groups of size one or two -- I will not allow groups larger than that. I will provide some suggestions for you to pick from, although you are encouraged to think of a project on your own, which I can then help to refine. Project write-ups will be similar in format to a conference submission, and all will be entered into a class-wide mini-conference. The best papers will receive some kind of recognition. More details are forthcoming.

Here are links to some previous class projects: Spring 2000 :: Fall 2000 :: Fall 2002 :: Fall 2003 :: Spring 2005

Exams

Midterm Exam: Monday, 10/29 at 7:15pm in 1325 CS.
Final Exam: Monday, 12/10 at 7:15pm in 1263 CS.

Assignments

Assignment #0: Digital Picture/Reading Group
Assignment #1: Project Proposal Meeting (by 11/1)
Assignment #2: Project Meeting (by 11/12)
Assignment #3: Project Presentation (due 12/14)
Assignment #4: Project Write-up (due 12/20)

Grading

Mailing List

Complaints about file systems, disk technology, and the engimatic "brain class" should be sent to Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau.