CS228A:
Topics in Distributed Systems
Fall
2009: Web-based (Cloud) Computing
NEWS:
- Project proposals are due on September 25.
- Details about projects
can be found here.
- The first three lectures were uploaded on LATTE
- Check the lecture
schedule for updates
Recent
developments in web technology have created a new paradigm for storing,
accessing and processing massive data. Web companies like Amazon,
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft provide web-based infrastructures that
offer on-line storage and computing facilities as a service. Such
services are typically hosted in large data centers, known as computing
clouds, using clusters of commodity machines that are shared among
users. The applications developed in these clouds differ from
traditional high-performance systems: they are data intensive systems
that acquire and maintain continuously changing data sets, in addition
to performing large-scale computations over the data. These systems
have the potential to achieve major breakthroughs in science, health
care, and information access as well as open new research directions in
topics like resource and data management, parallel programming,
parallel algorithms and system design.
This
course will investigate the state of the art in web-based data
intensive computing in cloud environments. We will study the existing
programming models,
platforms and tools for data-intensive computing, as well the active
research projects on academic institutions. We will also examine
several well-known industrial applications as case studies. The course
will primarily consist of technical readings and discussions.
Course
Information
Time: Tuesday-Friday 1:40-3:00pm
Location:
Volen 106
Prerequisite:
Background in database systems and distributed systems is recommended
but not required. First
lectures will provide relevant database and networking background.
Graduate students should email olga@cs.brandeis.edu to get a permission
code. Undergraduates are required to
acquire the instructor's consent.
Course
Objective
COSI 228
is a reading-intensive seminar course in the intersection of databases
and distributed systems. The theme of the course for the Fall 2009 is Cloud
Computing. The
objective of this class is to teach you to:
-
✓ Grasp basic concepts in distributed and parallel computing.
-
✓ Understand the basic principles of web services.
-
✓ Understand the resource sharing and storage approaches used by leading web companies (Yahoo, Google, Amazon, etc).
-
✓ Understand the state-of-the-art in data-intensive processing languages.
-
✓ Learn how to develop data-intensive applications on Amazon’s Web Services.
Course
Structure
We
will meet twice a week and each meeting will include the presentation
of research papers. The first class will cover the basic logistics of
the course and the following three will be lectures on basic principles
on databases and distributed systems. All remaining meetings will
be seminar style (40-50 minutes of presentation followed by
discussion).
Readings
The course
will be reading-intensive with readings drawn from numerous papers that
will be available on this web site. Students are required to read the
papers and submit their reviews before each meeting. The list of
readings is available here.
Evaluation
Course
Skills
This
course requires (and will also help you hone) two important skills: a)
reading a research paper and b) giving good presentations. Below are
some useful tips on these:
