CIS5930

CIS5930: Advanced Topics in Parallel and Distributed Systems

Spring 2014

Meeting time Tuesday, Thursday, 2:00pm-3:15pm

Meeting location 301 Lov Building

Instructor Prof. Xin Yuan, 168 Love Building, 644-9133, xyuan@cs.fsu.edu

Office hours Tuesday, Thursday 10:0apm-11:30am, or by appointment.

Textbook There is no required textbook

Class Home Page http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~xyuan/cis5930/index.html

Course description and objectives

This advanced topics class has two objectives: (1) bringing the students up-to-date in research in extreme scale parallel and distributed systems, and (2) introducing software, algorithmic, and analytical tools and techniques that are necessary to perform research in this area. The topics are broadly classified in four areas: (1) programming paradigms, (2) interconnect design, model, and evaluation, (3)systems software and communication sub-systems, and (4) resilience, power, and security issues in PDS. After this course, the students should be able to :

Explain the current research issues in extreme scale parallel and distributed systems.
Apply techniques to investigate, model, and simulate extreme scale parallel and distributed systems.

Course materials Most course materials are papers in recent (2014, 2013, 2012) top-tier conferences in this area. Introductory materials in programming paradigms are from tutorials in various websites.

Prerequisite

You must have completed COP 4610 Operating Systems (or equivalent)
You ideally should have completed one of CDA5125 (Introduction to PDS), CNT5505 (Data and Computer Communications), or COP5570 (Current Parallel and Distributed Programming).

Grading
The students will be required to read research papers before classroom discussion and write short critics. Homework will be assigned occasionally. Students in this class should form groups of two people. Most of the tasks in this course including homeworks will be done in groups. Each group is also expected to present papers once or twice in the semester, do a course research project (a report and a 30-minute presentation). The grade points are distributed as follows:

10% - classroom participation
20% - classroom presentation
10% - homework, paper critics, programming assignments
40% - course project (group)
20% - final exam (take home, open everything)

Final letter grade will be assigned based on the relative performance.

Tentative schedule

Week 1: Syllabus and introduction
Week 2: Programming paradigm (MPI, GPU/MIC, Mapreduce, hybrid)
Week 3: Programming paradigm (MPI, GPU/MIC, Mapreduce, hybrid)
Week 4: Programming paradigm (MPI, GPU/MIC, Mapreduce, hybrid)
Week 5: Interconnect basics
Week 6: Interconnect technology: Infiniband, 100G Ethernet, Openflow
Week 7: New interconnect proposals
Week 8: Interconnect modeling and simulation methods
Week 9: System software and communication sub-systems
Week 10: Spring break
Week 11: System software and communication sub-systems
Week 12: Resilience, power, and security
Week 13: Resilience, power, and security
Week 14: Resilience, power, and security
Week 15: Term project presentation
Week 16: Term project presentation

Academic Honor Code
You are required to read the FSU Academic Honor Code and abide by it. First violations will result in lowering of the final course grade by one whole letter. Repeat violations will result in a grade of F with no provision for retaking the course.

By turning in work for a grade in this course you are representing it as being entirely your own individual work. Unless otherwise specified in writing, all programming projects are individual projects. If any assignment permits teamwork, it will be explicitly stated so in the assignment, and then the work is required to be only the work of the people on the team.

What does ``individual work'' mean? An intelligent person searches publications (including the web) for information, ideas, and code. If you use information or ideas obtained from the work of another person you must at least give credit via comments in your code stating what you have used, where you obtained it, and who is the person to whom credit is due. (Beware: If an idea is patented the above is not enough; you should not use it at all without a license.) If you use any code written by another person you must first obtain permission from the author or copyright owner, then mark the beginning and end of the quoted code using appropriate comments, and include a comment giving where you found the code and the the name of the author or copyright holder. Failure to follow these rules will be considered a violation of the Academic Honor Code.

Accommodation for Disabilities

Students with disabilities needing academic accommodations should:

Register with and provide documentation to the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC).
Bring a letter to the instructor from the SDRC `indicating you need academic accommodations. This should be done within the first week of class.

This syllabus and other class materials are available in alternative format upon request.

For more information about services available to FSU students with disabilities, contact the Assistant Dean of Students:

Student Disability Resource Center
08 Kellum Hall
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4066

e-mail: sdrc@admin.fsu.edu
phone: (850) 644-9566.