CS 754: Advanced Distributed Systems

Fall 2024

Course Information

Instructor: Samer Al-Kiswany

When: Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:00am - 11:20am eastern time.

Where: TBD

Office hours: I will be available after every class to answer questions or by appointment.

Links:  LEARN, Piazza, Course details, Outline, Course Overview Video

Course Overview

Welcome to the graduate course on distributed systems. This course will discuss a broad range of topics about modern distributed systems. The course will discuss the state of the art of these systems and how and why they reached there. We will discuss how modern systems can tolerate failures, maintain data consistency, scale, leverage the new hardware capabilities, and exploit highly concurrent hardware.

Throughout the course you will learn powerful distributed techniques and their tradeoffs, but most importantly, you will learn how and when to use them. Through studying a broad spectrum of systems and through the term project we will learn system design principles, design techniques, as well as how to do systems research.

The schedule bellow lists the course topics. Further details about the course policies, load, and grading scheme can be found here.

Schedule  (Tentative)

Academic Integrity

In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. All members of the UW community are expected to hold to the highest standard of academic integrity in their studies, teaching, and research. The Office of Academic Integrity's website (http://www.uwaterloo.ca/academicintegrity) contains detailed information on UW policy for students and faculty. This site explains why academic integrity is important and how students can avoid academic misconduct. It also identifies resources available on campus for students and faculty to help achieve academic integrity in and out of the classroom.

Grievance

A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4, http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy70.htm

Discipline

A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing academic offenses, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offense, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offenses (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about rules for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course professor, academic advisor, or the Undergraduate Associate Dean. When misconduct has been found to have occurred, disciplinary penalties will be imposed under Policy 71 Student Discipline. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71 - Student Discipline, http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy71.htm

Avoiding Academic Offenses

Most students are unaware of the line between acceptable and unacceptable academic behavior, especially when discussing assignments with classmates and using the work of other students. For information on commonly misunderstood academic offenses and how to avoid them, students should refer to the Faculty of Mathematics Cheating and Student Academic Discipline Policy, http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/navigation/Current/cheating_policy.shtml

Appeals

A student may appeal the finding and/or penalty in a decision made under Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances (other than regarding a petition) or Policy 71 - Student Discipline if a ground for an appeal can be established. Read Policy 72 - Student Appeals, http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy72