General Information

Course Description

The purpose of this course is helping students to gain hands-on experience on designing distributed/networked systems. The topics include (tentatively):

• Introduction to Distributed operating systems
• Distributed systems built on top of resource-constrained networks (sensor networks)
  • Introduction to sensor hardware, Tiny OS and nesC programming
  • Communication fundamentals: Radio communication, MAC and Routing protocol
  • Time synchronization, collaborative localization
  • Inter-node scheduling, clustering
  • Data management: data propagation, query and response, and aggregation 
  • Memory and storage management
  • Security mechanisms
• Distributed systems built on top of resource-rich networks (Internet)
  • IPC
  • RPC
  • Distributed file systems
  • Distributed shared memory systems  

Prerequisites

ComS 311, ComS 352, ENGL 105, SP CM 212

Textbook & References

No textbook. References and handouts will be posted on the course website (WebCT).

Course Schedule, handouts, homework assignment, discussion board, etc. are also available in WebCT

Programming Projects

3 programming projects will be assigned. Students are required to develop nesC code for Tiny OS/Mote, or C/C++ code for Linux/Regular-computer. The code of each project shall be submitted by its deadline via WebCT, and students will meet with TA individually for demonstration. To finish a project, students can form groups, and each group cannot have more than 2 students. 

You can borrow motes from the instructor for projects and self-practice.

Term Project

Student may choose one of the following options to do term projects:

• A creative/integrated software system: Applying hands-on experience gained in the class, each group (with up to two students) will design a creative and/or integrated software system that can be run on nesC/Mote or linux/Regular-computer, along with a brief and well-documented description of design motivation, design principle, and user manual. Students are free to choose their topics.
• A survey paper or a research paper on one of the topics discussed in class or others approved by the instructor. Each survey paper shall be an individual effort. Students may form groups (each with up to two students, again) on research papers if approved by the instructor.

Students are encouraged to discuss with the instructor on their term projects (for topic choosing, etc.)

• Programming Projects (20% each)
• Midterm Exam (Undergraduate students: 20%; Graduate students: 10%)
• Term Project (Undergraduate students: 20%; Graduate students: 30%) - Outstanding term projects may get bonus based on the judgments of the instructor/TA.
  

Late Policy: Homework and projects must be turned in before the specified due date and time. Late homework and projects will NOT be accepted.

Academic Honesty: You must do your homework and projects on your own!

You may discuss the homework with anyone and use any reference material, provided you do not copy any other person's work. Appropriate reference or credit must be acknowledged if you do not solve the homework problems on your own.

For the programming projects, it is expected that you have written EVERY LINE OF CODE that you submit (with the exception of code given out in class or references). The following are examples of activities that are PROHIBITED:

• Writing code with another student.
• Copying code from another student.
• Giving code to another student (via email, printouts, etc).
• Posting code in a publicly accessible location.

Disability Policy: If you have a disability and require accommodations, please contact the instructor early in the semester so that your learning needs may be appropriately met. You will need to provide documentation of your disability to the Disability Resources (DR) office, located on the main floor of the Student Services Building, Room 1076, 515-294-6624.