87474 - Distributed Systems

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students got acquainted with the fundamental issues of distributed systems, the computational models capturing their essence, and the technologies currently helping facing them in the most systematic and effective way. In particular, students become familiar with the fittest solutions, technologies, architectures, and methodologies to design distributed systems, and is capable of devising out the most critical aspects of distributed systems coming from physical distribution determining the most proper methodological approaches selecting the fittest technologies for implementing the solutions detected

Course contents

• Case Studies
  • The CAP Theorem. Availability, Consistency, Failure in Distributed Systems
  • The Problem of Consensus in Distributed Systems
  • Distributed Ledger Technology. Blockchain as Middleware
  • Representational State Transfer (ReST)
  • Logical Clocks
  • Simple Agents in JADE
  • Coordination in Linda
  • Code Mobility
• General Issues of Distributed Systems
  • Why Distributed Systems?
  • Replication & Consistency in Distributed Systems
  • Dependability in Distributed Systems
  • Roots of Distributed Systems. Computation in Space & Time
  • Definitions & Goals for Distributed Systems
  • Sorts of Distributed Systems
  • Modelling Distributed Systems. Software & System Architectures
  • Modelling Distributed Systems. Process Algebra
  • Computing with Time
  • Agents for Distributed Systems
  • Coordination of Distributed Systems
  • Computing with Space
• Technologies for Distributed Systems
  • Infrastructural components and interaction patterns for distributed systems
  • Tools and diagrams for distributed systems modelling
  • Basic mechanisms for distributed systems
  • Communication mechanisms (stream- and packet-based interaction with sockets) in Python
  • Data presentation, serialization and deserialization: tools and technologies
  • Anatomy of Remote Procedure Calls
  • Case study: guided design and implementation of a distributed system from scratch

Readings/Bibliography

The bibliography is made available through the course web site.

Teaching methods

• Lessons with slides
• Examples discussed and built by the teachers
  
• Lab activity

Assessment methods

• Development of an individual/group project involving the design and prototyping of a distributed system (software+report)
• Presentation and discussion of the aforementioned project

Teaching tools

• web site of the professor
• web page of the course with slides (PDF), other materials and useful links
• recorded lectures for background topics

Links to further information

https://apice.unibo.it/xwiki/bin/view/Courses/Series/Ds/

Office hours

See the website of Andrea Omicini

See the website of Giovanni Ciatto