Principles of Distributed Computing (FS 2018)

Course catalogue • Previous year • PODC 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.

• Course pre-requisites: Interest in algorithmic problems. (No particular course needed.)
• Course language: English
• Lecture by Roger Wattenhofer and Mohsen Ghaffari, Wednesdays 8-10 in CAB G 11
• Exercises organized by Darya Melnyk (for Prof. Wattenhofer's part), and Manuela Fischer and Jara Uitto (for Prof. Ghaffari's part)
  • Exercise A: Wednesdays 10-12 in CAB G 56
  • Exercise B: Wednesdays 13-15 in LFW C 11
  • Both exercise sessions offer identical content. Please go to the exercise session which better fits your personal schedule.

News

• March 26, 2018: Bonus task announced.
• May 8, 2018: We've set up a test version of the last year's online exam on Moodle and uploaded some exams from previous years.
• May 14, 2018: Second bonus round announced.
• June 18, 2018: Lecture notes, Algorithm 10.14 has been updated.
• August 09, 2018: Information about the exam has been updated.
• September 14, 2018: Exam review dates have been announced

Exam

• The exam will take place on Monday, August 13, from 9am to 11am in HG G 1.
• You are allowed to bring any written material you like (lecture notes, books, personal notes,...), but no electronic devices whatsoever (no calculator, phone, laptop,...).
• We will do the exam as an online examination. It will take place in a computer room at ETH and you will answer the questions on a computer. There will also be paper available in case you want to draw a picture, write down some formulas or hand in some additional notes which you can't easily type on the computer.
• You will log on to Moodle in order to access the PODC exam on Monday. Please remember to look up your credentials unless you already know them by heart.
• It is not possible to bring your own keyboard, mouse or any other hardware.
• If you have additional questions about the exam, please write an email to Darya.
• We've prepared a Moodle test version of the last year's online exam. You can use this as training material to familiarize yourself with Moodle exams.
• Here are some old exams from previous years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017.
• Please be aware that the topics covered in this course have changed several times over the years. Therefore, some questions in these exams don't match the content of this year's course.

Exam review

We offer two review sessions which will take place in the room ETZ G 88 on

• Monday, September 17, 9:00-11:00 and
• Wednesday, September 26, 13:00-15:00

Please bring your legi for identification; you won't be allowed to see your exam papers without this.

Lecture Material

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

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