Course Outline for CS 854, Fall 2013

University of Waterloo

Term and Year of Offering: Fall 2013

Course Number and Title: CS 854 - Advanced Topics in Computer Systems: Operating Systems Techniques for Many-Core CPUs and Deep Caching Hierarchies

Comp Sec	Camp Loc	Time Days/Date	Bldg Room	Instructor
SEM 001	UW U	01:30-04:20Th	DC 3313	Martin Karsten

Instructor's Name	Office Location	Contact	Office Hours
Martin Karsten	DC 3506	mkarstenuwaterloo.ca	by email

NOTE: If you have missed the organizational meeting and would like to take the course for credit, please send an email to the instructor.

Course Description

Current trends in hardware design lead to changes in processor architecture: increasing transistor density is used for building parallel execution paths; increasing memory latency (relative to processing speed) is masked by deep caching hierarchies; hardware performance counters give increasingly detailed insights into execution performance at runtime. Furthermore, virtualization and cloud computing introduce novel computing scenarios, such as server consolidation and big data analysis. In this course, we will study the recent research literature addressing those challenges and opportunities. We will investigate and attempt to categorize/generalize solution approaches.

Course Overview

The course is comprised of several elements as outlined below.

The first part of the course studies background literature in a lecture-style setting, but with a strong discussion component. All students must read the background literature in preparation for class.
The second part of the course is concerned with specific research literature. During each class, we will discuss up to three papers. Each student is expected to present at least one paper in a 25-minute conference-style presentation, and lead the subsequent discussion about that paper.
During the second part, all students must read all designated papers before class and must submit a short summary for each of them by 9am on the day of the class. The length of the summary should be around 500-800 words and present the most important ideas. The summary should be self-contained assuming a general familiarity in the area.
Students will work in groups of 1-3 students (depending on the size of the project) on a research project related to the topic of the course. Projects should consist of literature research and an investigative component using analysis and/or simulation and/or prototype implementation and experimentation. Each group must submit a proposal to the instructor. Near the end of term, each group will present their work to the class in a 30-minute conference-style presentation. In addition, by the end of term, the group must produce a workshop-quality paper describing their project. The typical paper should be about 10-12 pages in IEEE conference style formatting. Further details will be provided during the organizational meeting.

Tentative Schedule

All papers linked below are directly accessible from computers on the UW network. To access ACM and IEEE papers outside the UW network, use the library proxy. For firefox, the URL Swap add-on is quite useful.

Sep 12	Organizational Meeting
Sep 19	Fundamentals and Hardware Trends (lecture)
Sep 26	Synchronization (lecture)
Oct 3	Memory and Caches
Oct 10	Scalable Data Structures
Oct 17	Control Flow and Scheduling
Oct 24	System Architecture
Oct 31	Dynamic System Optimization (guest lecture)
Nov 7	Alternative Hardware and Software Design
Nov 14	Virtualization, Cloud, and Power
Nov 21	Project Presentations
Nov 28	Project Presentations

Communication

The primary means for announcements are this web page and Piazza. Please direct course-related questions to Piazza, if possible. If necessary, contact the instructor directly (preferably by email).

Prerequisites

From the School's web page:

Graduate courses assume a background of at least third-year Honours Computer Science at the University of Waterloo and a similar level of mathematical maturity. Students lacking this background will be asked to acquire this material in addition to the other requirements of the program.

Students considering the course should have taken and enjoyed an operating systems course, such as CS 350.

Evaluation (tentative)

IMPORTANT: Class attendance is required throughout the term!

	Marks
Paper Summaries	15
Class Participation	15
Paper Presentation	20
Course Project	50
Total	100

For an audit credit, you need to satisfy passing requirements for 'Class Participation' and 'Paper Reviews'.

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. Check www.uwaterloo.ca/academicintegrity/ for more information.

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, www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy70.htm. When in doubt please be certain to contact the department's administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.

Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity (check www.uwaterloo.ca/academicintegrity/) to avoid committing an academic offence, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about 'rules' for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course instructor, academic advisor, or the undergraduate Associate Dean. For information on categories of offences and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71, Student Discipline, www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy71.htm. For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties, www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/guidelines/penaltyguidelines.htm.

Appeals: A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70 (Student Petitions and Grievances) (other than a petition) or Policy 71 (Student Discipline) may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes he/she has a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72 (Student Appeals) www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy72.htm.

Note for Students with Disabilities: AccessAbility Services, located in Needles Hall, Room 1132, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with AccessAbility Services at the beginning of each academic term.