Principles of Distributed Computing (FS 2019)

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 Sebastian Brandt, Manuela Fischer, and Julian Portmann (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

February 27, 2019: Lecture notes, Algorithm 1.17 has been updated.
February 28, 2019: Dates for the first graded homework assignment have been announced.
March 15, 2019: The first graded homework assignment is available on the moodle course homepage.
April 18, 2019: The second graded homework assignment is available on the moodle course homepage.
April 18, 2019: Corrections of the first homework assignment are available on the moodle course homepage.
May 20, 2019: Information about the Q&A session has been updated
May 29, 2019: Corrections of the second homework assignment are now available on the moodle course homepage.
May 31, 2019: Information about the exam has been added
May 31, 2019: Page 2 in the "Labeling Schemes" lecture notes has been updated. Besides minor adjustments, a new theorem (13.3) has been added which reflects a discussion in the lecture.
July 22, 2019: Information about the second Q&A session has been added
July 29, 2019: The date of the second Q&A session has been announced
September 13, 2019: The dates for the Exam review have been announced

Exam

The exam will take place on Monday, August 12, from 9am to 12am in HIL C 15.
You are allowed to bring any written material you like (lecture notes, books, personal notes,...), but no electronic devices whatsoever (no calculator, phone, laptop, headphones,...).
Unlike in the past years, this exam will last 3 hours and consist of 180 points.
Here are some old exams from previous years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017(with solutions), 2018(with solutions).
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

Wednesday, September 18, 13:00-15:00 and
Tuesday, September 24, 09:00-11:00

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

Graded Homework Assignment

We will have two graded homework assignments (compulsory continuous performance assessment). Each graded homework assignment will account for 10% of the final grade, the main exam will be 80% of the final grade.

Lecture Material

Chapter Title	Lecturer	Lecture Notes	Exercises	Responsible Assistant	Additional Material
Chapter 0 Introduction 20.02.2019	Roger Wattenhofer	PDF 1:1 PDF 2:1			[peleg] Preface, Chapter 1
Chapter 1 Vertex Coloring 20.02.2019	Roger Wattenhofer	PDF 1:1 PDF 2:1	Exercises Solutions	Pankaj	[peleg] Chapter 7 Slides by S.Schmid, TU Berlin
Chapter 2 Tree Algorithms 27.02.2019	Roger Wattenhofer	PDF 1:1 PDF 2:1	Exercises Solutions	Darya	[peleg] Chapter 3-5 [hkpru] Chapter 7 Slides by S.Schmid, TU Berlin
Chapter 3 Coloring General Graphs 06.03.2019	Mohsen Ghaffari	Sections 1.4.1 & 1.4.2 of these notes	Exercises Solutions	Sebastian
Chapter 4 Lower Bounds for Coloring 13.03.2019	Mohsen Ghaffari	Sections 1.2.2 of these notes	Exercises Solutions	Sebastian
Chapter 5 Maximal Independent Set 20.03.2019	Mohsen Ghaffari	Sections 1.6 of these notes	Exercises Solutions	Sebastian
Chapter 6 Network Decomposition 27.03.2019	Mohsen Ghaffari	Sections 1.5.1 & 1.5.3 of these notes	Exercises Solutions	Julian
Chapter 7 Shared Objects 03.04.2019	Roger Wattenhofer	PDF 1:1 PDF 2:1	Exercises Solutions	András	Slides by S.Schmid, TU Berlin
Chapter 8 Distributed Sorting 10.04.2019	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 9 Global Problems 1 17.04.2019	Roger Wattenhofer	PDF 1:1 PDF 2:1	Exercises Solutions	Aryaz	Slides some additional Slides Animation of APSP Algorithm by Jukka Suomela
Chapter 10 Global Problems 2: Minimum Spanning Tree 08.05.2019	Mohsen Ghaffari	PDF	Exercises Solutions	Julian
Chapter 11 Global Problems 3: Minimum Cut 15.05.2019	Mohsen Ghaffari	PDF	Exercises Solutions	Julian
Chapter 12 Distributed Computing via All-to-All Communication 22.05.2019	Mohsen Ghaffari	PDF	Exercises Solutions	Manuela
Chapter 13 Labeling Schemes 29.05.2019	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