Distributed Computing
ETH Zurich

Principles of Distributed Computing (FS 2018)

Course cataloguePrevious yearPODC lecture collection

Distributed computing is essential in modern computing and communications systems. Examples are on the one hand large-scale networks such as the Internet, and on the other hand multiprocessors such as your new multi-core laptop. This course introduces the principles of distributed computing, emphasizing the fundamental issues underlying the design of distributed systems and networks: communication, coordination, fault-tolerance, locality, parallelism, self-organization, symmetry breaking, synchronization, uncertainty. We explore essential algorithmic ideas and lower bound techniques, basically the "pearls" of distributed computing. We will cover a fresh topic every week.

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Exam

Exam review

We offer two review sessions which will take place in the room ETZ G 88 on Please bring your legi for identification; you won't be allowed to see your exam papers without this.

Lecture Material

Chapter Title Lecturer Lecture Notes Exercises Responsible Assistant Additional Material
Chapter 0
Introduction
21.02.2018
Roger Wattenhofer PDF 1:1
PDF 2:1
[peleg] Preface, Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Vertex Coloring
21.02.2018
Roger Wattenhofer PDF 1:1
PDF 2:1
Exercises
Solutions
András [peleg] Chapter 7
Slides by S.Schmid, TU Berlin
Chapter 2
Tree Algorithms
28.02.2018
Roger Wattenhofer PDF 1:1
PDF 2:1
Exercises
Solutions
András [peleg] Chapter 3-5
[hkpru] Chapter 7
Slides by S.Schmid, TU Berlin
Chapter 3
Shared Objects
07.03.2018
Roger Wattenhofer PDF 1:1
PDF 2:1
Exercises
Solutions
Darya Slides by S.Schmid, TU Berlin
Chapter 4
Coloring General Graphs
14.03.2018
Mohsen Ghaffari PDF Exercises
Solutions
Manuela
Chapter 5
Maximal Independent Set
21.03.2018
Mohsen Ghaffari PDF Exercises
Solutions
Jara
Chapter 6
Lower Bounds for Coloring Trees
28.03.2018
Mohsen Ghaffari PDF Exercises
Solutions
Jara
Chapter 7
Distributed Sorting
11.04.2018
Roger Wattenhofer PDF 1:1
PDF 2:1
Exercises
Solutions
Zeta [leighton] Chapter 1.6 & 3.5
[clr] Chapter 28
Slides by S.Schmid, TU Berlin
Chapter 8
Sublinear-time Centralized Algorithms
18.04.2018
Mohsen Ghaffari PDF Exercises
Solutions
Sebastian
Chapter 9
Network Decomposition
25.04.2018
Mohsen Ghaffari PDF Exercises
Solutions
Sebastian
Chapter 10
Wireless Protocols
02.05.2018
Roger Wattenhofer PDF 1:1
PDF 2:1
Exercises
Solutions
Pankaj Slides by Y.-A. Pignolet
Chapter 11
Global Problems 1
09.05.2018
Roger Wattenhofer PDF 1:1
PDF 2:1
Exercises
Solutions
Yuyi Slides some additional Slides
Animation of APSP Algorithm by Jukka Suomela
Chapter 12
Global Problems 2:
Minimum Spanning Tree
16.05.2018
Mohsen Ghaffari PDF Exercises
Solutions
Jara
Chapter 13
Graph Sketching
23.05.2018
Mohsen Ghaffari PDF Exercises
Solutions
Jara
Chapter 14
Labeling Schemes
30.05.2018
Roger Wattenhofer PDF 1:1
PDF 2:1
Exercises
Solutions
Jakub

References

These books are available at CS text book collection.

[peleg] Distributed Computing: A Locality-Sensitive Approach
David Peleg.
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), 2000, ISBN 0-89871-464-8
[aw] Distributed Computing: Fundamentals, Simulations and Advanced Topics
Hagit Attiya, Jennifer Welch.
McGraw-Hill Publishing, 1998, ISBN 0-07-709352 6
[hkpru] Dissemination of Information in Communication Networks
Juraj Hromkovic, Ralf Klasing, Andrzej Pelc, Peter Ruzicka, Walter Unger.
Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 2005, ISBN 3-540-00846-2
[leighton] Introduction to Parallel Algorithms and Architectures: Arrays, Trees, Hypercubes
Frank Thomson Leighton.
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1991, ISBN 1-55860-117-1
[clr] Introduction to Algorithms
Thomas Cormen, Charles Leiserson, Ronald Rivest.
The MIT Press, 1998, ISBN 0-262-53091-0 oder 0-262-03141-8