This is an archived syllabus from 2020-2021

• View 2022-2023 syllabus.

COMP28112 Distributed Systems

Level 2
Credits: 10
Enrolled students: 207

Course leader: Sandra Sampaio

Additional staff: view all staff

Requisites

• Pre-Requisite (Compulsory): COMP16412
• Pre-Requisite (Compulsory): COMP15212

Additional requirements

• Students who are not from the Department of Computer Science must have permission from both Computer Science and their home School to enrol.

Assessment methods

• 100% Practical skills assessment

Timetable

Semester	Event	Location	Day	Time	Group
Sem 2	ONLINE ACTIVITY		Thu	13:00 - 14:00	-
Sem 2 B	ONLINE LabORATORY		Fri	11:00 - 13:00	F
Sem 2 B	ONLINE LabORATORY		Mon	14:00 - 16:00	G
Sem 2 B	ONLINE LabORATORY		Mon	16:00 - 18:00	H

Themes to which this unit belongs

• Web and Distributed Systems

Overview

The course unit assumes that students already have a solid understanding of the main principles of computing within a single machine, have a basic understanding of the issues related to machine communication and networking, and have a notion of what distributed computing is. The syllabus will contain topics covering the fundamentals of distributed computing, its application in modern systems and issues to be considered when designing distributed systems.  

This course unit detail provides the framework for delivery in 20/21 and may be subject to change due to any additional Covid-19 impact.  Please see Blackboard / course unit related emails for any further updates.

Aims

To provide students with the awareness of the impact and benefits of distributed computing in their everyday interaction with modern computer technology, as well as knowledge of the fundamentals of distributed computing, and understanding of essential techniques and methods, to equip students with basic skills to further explore more advanced course units that require knowledge of distributed computing.

Syllabus

Introduction

Revision of the characteristics of distributed systems. Challenges. Architectural models.

Remote Invocation and Distributed Objects

Java RMI, CORBA, Web Services.

Message-Oriented middleware

Synchronous vs asynchronous messaging. Point-to-point messaging. Publish-subscribe.

Concurrency, co-ordination and distributed transactions

Ordering of events. Two-phase commit protocol. Consensus.

Caching and Replication

Security

Service-Oriented Architectures, REST and Web Services

Teaching methods

Lectures

22 in total, 2 per week

Laboratories

10 hours in total, 5 2-hour sessions

Feedback methods

Study hours

• Assessment written exam (2 hours)
• Lectures (24 hours)
• Practical classes & workshops (12 hours)

Employability skills

• Analytical skills
• Innovation/creativity
• Problem solving

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, a student will be able to:

• Have acquired knowledge and understanding of the main principles, techniques and methods supporting the basic functionality of distributed systems.
• Have developed the ability to identify applications where distributed computing is used and its impact on society.
• Have acquired knowledge and understanding of main issues to be considered when designing a distributed system.
• Have developed the ability to understand how the main principles, techniques and methods supporting distributed computing are applied in practice in existing systems.
• Have developed the ability to design and implement prototypical distributed computing applications using available technologies.

Reading list

Additional notes

Course unit materials

Links to course unit teaching materials can be found on the School of Computer Science website for current students.