Distributed Systems Part 2 (HS 2011)

We present the characteristics and concepts of distributed systems, and discuss distributed control algorithms (flooding, mutual exclusion, logical clocks), communications models (remote procedure call, client-server models, synchronous and asynchronous communication), abstract communication principles (broadcast, events, tupel spaces), name services, communication middleware for open systems, infrastructure for ad hoc networking (JINI), cloud computing, and mechanisms for security and safety. Having a distributed system may permit getting away with failures and malfunctions of parts of the system. We discuss fault-tolerance issues (models, consensus, agreement) as well as replication issues (primary copy, 2PC, 3PC, Paxos, quorum systems). To get familiar with message passing communication, some of the exercises will be devoted to a practical lab where participants will develop software for a mobile platform (smart phones).

Topics: Distributed control algorithms (mutual exclusion, logical clocks), communication models (RPC, client-server, synchronous and asynchronous communication), abstract communication principles (broadcast, events, tupel spaces), communication middleware, security mechanisms, fault-tolerance (failure models, consensus, agreement), replication (primary copy, 2PC, 3PC, Paxos, quorum systems).

Course pre-requisites: - .

Course language: German or English.