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Answers to reading questions should be written up as a text file (e.g., with emacs or vim or ...) and placed in your handin directory before 9am on the day of the class. The handin directories are found in ~cs739-1/handin/username/hw where username is your CS username. These directories are mounted on all departmental Linux machines. Note that your directory may not yet be there if you are not yet enrolled in class; if so, don't worry, we will figure it out. File name should follow this format exactly: for question 1, make a file
with the name 1.txt. Of course, the number of the question should change
each time. Thus, to see your work for question 1, I should be able to type:
cat ~cs739-1/handin/username/hw/1.txtand see what you have written - assuming your login is username that is. Tip #1: Keep it short, say 2-3 paragraphs. Tip #2: Don't spend time regurgitating obvious stuff from the papers! The point of these questions is to think , and then to write down what it is that you thought about. I read a lot of write-ups, so the more interesting you are, the better! If you find yourself just repeating a lot of details from the paper, you are going down the wrong path. Tip #3: Don't spend time criticizing how the authors wrote the paper. That is, I don't need to know whether you thought the paper was well written or not. We'll have plenty of time to talk about those types of things later in the class. Focus on technical aspects for these questions. QuestionsQ1 (due 9/12 @ 11am): What was the most interesting aspect in the Hamilton paper? In the Dean slides? Also, which aspect of each do you think is least relevant or important today? Q2 (due 9/14 @ 11am): The RPC paper showcases how engineers make design decisions. What do you think is the best design decision in the RPC paper? What is the worst? Q3 (due 9/19 @ 11am): What aspect of Gray's paper is most correct still today? Which is most wrong? For the Yuan paper, considering all of the data from the paper, do you agree or disagree with the main premise, as expressed in the title? ("simple testing can prevent most critical failures") Is this a useful result/claim? Q4 (due 9/21 @ 11am): Pick one figure or table from each of the two papers that you think is most important. Describe the figure/table, and why you think it is important. What will change about system design because of the figure/table? Q5 (due 9/26 @ 11am): What is a good real world example for logical clock? Can you think of an example where a logical clock will not be sufficient, and you would need a vector clock? Q6 (due 9/28 @ 11am): What lessons still hold from the Flash and SEDA papers? Which don't? Explain. No questions for 10/3 - just come to talk in 1240 CS. No questions for 10/5 - don't want to hear criticism of our own paper, d o I? Q7 (due 10/10 @ 11am): Which performance result of WiscKey is most surprising? Which is most impressive? Which is most negative/concerning? Q8 (due 10/12 @ 11am): How could leases be used to improve NFS client cache consistency? What is the downside of using leases to improve NFS? Q9 (due 10/17 @ 11am): What kind of faults are handled well by the primary/backup approach as described in the Remus paper? In the HA-NFS paper? Which types of faults aren't handled well? No questions for 10/24 No questions for 10/26 - but read! Q10 (due 10/31 @ 11am): What aspect of Raft is most confusing? How does it compare to Paxos in your opinion? Q11 (due 11/7 @ 11am): How are Bayou writes different from writes in simpler distributed storage systems? No questions for 11/16 No questions for 11/21 No question for 11/28 - read and focus on projects! No question for 11/30 - read and focus on projects! No question for 12/05 - read and focus on projects! |