Principles of Distributed Computing (FS 2022)

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, Goran Zuzic and Michal Dory, Wednesdays 8-10: CAB G 11 and on Zoom: https://ethz.zoom.us/j/64482525349.
• Exercises organized by Karolis Martinkus (for Prof. Wattenhofer's part), Goran Zuzic and Michal Dory.
  • Exercise A: Wednesdays 14-16: ETZ E 6.
  • Exercise B: Wednesdays 16-18: ETZ E 6.
  • Both exercise sessions offer identical content. Please visit the exercise session which better fits your personal schedule.
  • Exercise sessions are in-person only, but you can find video recordings in moodle.

Exam

• The exam will take place on Thursday, August 25, from 8:30 AM to 11:30 AM in ONA E 25.
• 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,...).
• Like last year, the exam will last 3 hours and consist of 180 points.
• Here are some old exams from previous years (since 2017 the exams come with solutions): 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021.
• 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.

We are going to host a question & answer session before the exam where you can ask questions about the lecture and exercises.

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.

Discussion Forum

We have set up a discussion forum on the moodle course homepage. You can use this forum to ask questions about the homework assignment as well as questions about the lecture. As this is a discussion forum, feel free to also answer the questions of your colleagues.

Lecture Recordings

Recorded videos can be accessed through the moodle course homepage.

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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