Home Page for CptS 464/564, Fall 2011

December 7, 2011

“December 7, 1941: A day that will live in infamy.” FDR

Today we will review for the midterm.

December 5, 2011

Today we will discuss Project 3 and finish CORBA (with a little QuO optionally).

November 30, 2011

Today we will discuss Project 3 and also CORBA.

We will not cover Chapter 21, the case study on Google.  Its simply too late in the semester for it to be reasonable for me to add another lecture for you to watch/attend beyond the remaining 3 ones. And you can read the chapter later, but what I will talk is a lot of insight into how middleware is built that you can’t read in books!

November 28, 2011

Today we will discuss Project 3 and also finish Chapter 14.

November 16, Redux

Project 3 (version 1) is now posted here.

November 16

Today we will cover most of Chapter 14.  I am pulling in slides from other sources to given an alternate explanation to complement that in your textbooks. Here they are: VR01, vector1, vector2

Homework 3 is out, it is due December 2 at 6pm.

Also, 564 students are required to read the original paper on logical time.

Finally, office hours are cancelled for today: I am fighting off a sinus infection and don’t want to contaminate anyone.  See me Friday 10:10-11:00 or set another time by email if you need to.

November 14

Today we will finish Chapter 10.

I will give out HW3 later this week, on Chapters 6 and 10.

We MAY have a makeup recorded lecture later … we’ll see if its needed.

November 4

Today we will continue Chapter 10, up thru the end of Pastry at most.

November 2, 2011

Today we will finish Chapter 6 and start on Chapter 10.

Friday I will record a lecture covering more on Chapter 10. It will be in Murrow 53 from 3:15 to 4:30. You are welcome to come to this if you would like to see it live.  Or not….

Oct 31, 2011

Today we will go through most of the rest of Chapter 6.

October 26, 2011

Monday Oct 24 I was of course sick….

Today we will start on Chapter 6.

October 17, 2011

Today we will discuss Project #2 and then cover Linda, FT-Linda, and Jini.  This contains some very “concrete” examples that will help make Chapter 6 (“Indirect Communication”) less, well, abstract.

Wednesday we will discuss the midterm exam, finish (if necessary) cover Linda, FT-Linda, and Jini, and begin on Chapter 6. And possibly also at the start Project #2.

October 10, 2011

Today we will finish Chapter 5, then review for the midterm.

 

Here is the start of the exam:

Cpt. S. 464/564  Distributed Systems Concepts and Programming

 

Midterm Examination

October 12, 2011

 386 possible points (464)  ____ check here if 464 student

 403 possible points (564)  ____ check here if 564 student

 

Write the answers to the following questions.  If you need more space, use the back of a sheet and clearly mention this on the front.  (You generally should not; answers are not expected to take longer than the space provided (often about half of the room I give), but extra length is not penalized so long as it is coherent and not unfocused rambling.)  If you think you need more room than the back of the sheet, or in most cases even more the room provided, reconsider. If you are not sure about some part of the question, state any assumptions you are making about the question, then answer it based on those assumptions.  If they are reasonable, there will be no points off.  Many students may not finish the exam, so it may be wise to read through the questions at the start and start with “low-hanging fruit”.  Finally, please check now that you have all pages in this copy of the exam.

 

Note: if you are a 464 student, I suggest you go cross out the questions or sub-questions marked [564 only]: in the past a few students in 464 have wasted time answering them on accident!

 

The midterm is Wednesday, “same bat time, same bat channel”.

October 5, 2011

Today we will answer any questions about Project #2.

We will also cover most of Chapter 5.

Finally, note that Monday we will finish the chapter and then have a review for the midterm, which is a week from today.

October 3, 2011

Today we will discuss Project #2.

Homework #2 is now out, it is due Tuesday October 11, the day before the midterm.

Today we will finish a case study on power grid publish-subscribe.

September 26 and 28, 2011, Redux

As mentioned earlier, you can find the recordings here: http://www.ams.wsu.edu/Videostreaming/ClassList.aspx?sem=Fall&y=2011.  They should be there by Monday or Tuesday.

If you are curious, following is info at my high-level plenary talk at the smart grid shindig in China. English slides, notes; Chinese slides. You should see some of the high-level concepts we have been talking in Chapter 1 described there!

September 26 and 28, 2011

Here is what next week’s pre-recorded lectures will cover (and spilling into Monday October 3):

1.       Finish Chapter 2

2.       Chapter 4. Please read this chapter soon.

3.       GridStat (finish 2nd half of a case study on power grid publish-subscribe). Reading assignment: D. Bakken, A. Bose, C. Hauser, D. Whitehead, and G. Zweigle. “Smart Generation and Transmission with Coherent, Real-Time Data”.  Proceedings of the IEEE (Special Issue on Smart Grids), 99(6), June 2011, 928-951. You need to access this from a wsu.edu host. Skip (or skim if you wish) the Section II on power. Please read this before we continue with this lecture

4.       Project #2 (Monday October 3)

Husky follies: These guys make the Three Stooges look competent, this punter runs like a girl at the end, and this guy gave the mutt QB a nice welcome.

September 21, 2011

Today we will return and discuss Project 1, finish last few slides of Homework #1, and then cover most or all of a case study on power grid publish-subscribe.

I will be in China next week. There will be no meetings for lectures. Rather, I will pre-record most or all of Chapter 4 (which you should read), and you can watch it at your leisure, in jammies if you wish.  Details to follow…

September 19, 2011

This week we will discuss Project 1 and finish Chapter 2, and likely start on Chapter 4 (please read).

September 12, 2011

The Virtual Machines are not quite yet set up for Project #1 … stay tuned. We will extend due date if necessary.

Today we start on Chapter 2.

September 7, 2011

Today we will give an overview of RTI DDS, discuss Project 1, show you the RTI DDS Getting Started Guide, and point you to more detailed programming documents: Users Manual, C++ API Reference, and Java API Reference.

September 1, 2011

Archived videos of this class can be found (if you are a WSU student or staff) here: http://www.ams.wsu.edu/Videostreaming/ClassList.aspx?sem=Fall&y=2011.

The video is officially promised to be there 24–48 hours later, but in practice it is much quicker than that.

August 31, 2011

Today we will finish Chapter 1.

Homework #1 is out, it is due at 6pm on Friday September 9 via ANGEL. Please submit it in pdf format.

August 29, 2011

Today we will finish middleware and then start on Chapter 1.

There was an interesting overview article on cloud computing.  You can read the first few paragraphs for free. It is quite illuminating and shows how it is indeed ill-defined.  But fear not, you will learn the underlying technologies in this class!

My office hours are Mondays 9:10-10:00 and Wednesdays 4:10-5:00 (unless I am on travel or ill). They are held in my office, which is EME 55. If you absolutely cannot make these hours, and need to be seen, then I would be happy to, but please email me rather than phoning.

August 24, 2011

After class on Monday some students reported that the bookstore had run out of copies of our textbook, and theirs was on order.

So today we are not going to start on Chapter 1. Rather, we will learn about middleware and asynchronous calls, with this possibly spilling into next Monday, when we will start on Chapter 1.

Today after class, until 5pm, there is an ice cream social for the college. Its in the courtyard in front of ETRL, i.e., on the Dana side.

August 22, 2011

Welcome to class! I will keep this Spartan blog up to date every so often, but the main medium of communication will be through email, via the ANGEL system.

Here is the course syllabus, and here

 are introductory slides for today.