34330 Execution Environments for Distributed Computing (EEDC), Course 2010-2011
Master in Computer Architecture, Networks and Systems (CANS)
Computer Architectura Department (AC), Technical University of Catalonia (UPC)
ECTS credits: 6

OFFICIAL COURSE DESCRIPTION : Guia docente” (Spanish)

OBJETIVOS: El objetivo del curso es ofrecer una visión de los desarrollos y la investigación en los entornos de ejecución para sistemas paralelos y distribuidos. Se estudiará la organización interna y la gestión que recursos requerida para garantizar funcionalidades y calidad de servicio.

METODOLOGÍA: Con clases magistrales se introduciran los temas que se trabajarán sobre artículos recientes publicados en congresos o revistas especializadas y propuestas de proyectos en desarrollo. Los alumnos deberán realizar la lectura y discusión de estos artículos.
Los alumos realizaran un trabajo personal y presentaran un tema de investigación relacionado con la asignatura. El estudiante tendrá que desarrollar su capacidad crítica para evaluar la adecuación de las soluciones presentadas o, en su caso, proponer posibles ideas.

EVALUACIÓN: La evaluación se basará en (a) la participación en las discusiones, (b) entrega de los trabajos propuestos y (c) en un trabajo final individual o por grupos.

INSTRUCTOR

Jordi Torres
Phone: +34 93 401 7223
Email : torres@ac.upc.edu
Office : UPC Campus Nord, Modul C6. Room 217.
Lecture and meeting times: to be announced.
Classroom: to be announced
Office hours: By appointment.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Nowadays, business and scientific organisations have a large amount of critical workflow processes that depend upon a set of heterogeneous applications. This set of applications can range from transactional applications, with databases, to non interactive applications such as those that perform scientific CPU-intensive computing, document indexing or intensive I/O. To efficiently execute all these kinds of applications, a new execution environment (or middleware) is needed to manage the available resources and simplify the development and integration of the different types of applications and services. These middleware components are crucial to new systems and architectures because of their direct impact on the quality of the service offered by the application. This course provides an overview of the wide scope of this area and introduces past and current research focusing on conceptual and practical aspects.

The course also has the objective of introducing the student to research. In general the EEDC course is focused on developing skills rather than content. For this reason each year we focus the course on some of the dichotomies which come to mind when looking at the strategies available to deal with concrete problems in the wider EEDC space and in relation to some problem of the utmost relevance. This year’s special focus is on the cloud computing,  green computing and smart computing.

Based on the previous concepts there will be paper readings assigned for some of the classes. We will have two main reading parts in the course, one for general papers and one for more in depth research in the area (related with the research project). Discussions will be led by one or more students and may include a brief presentation of the paper. All students taking the course are required to complete a research project (or “state-of-the-field” review). The project is intended to provide the student with an opportunity to gain experience with research in a topic related to the content of the course. Moreover we will introduce the student to the research information resources.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: On completion of this course you will be able to:

• Students will have a solid understanding of the concepts used in the course. This understanding will provide them with the foundation necessary to be able to pursue further learning on their own.
• Students will increase their expertise in this important area of computer science that support current internet world.
• Students will have an understanding of the impact of computers in society.
• Students will gain experience to orally communicate ideas and concepts clearly and in an organized manner.
• Students will gain experience to write research reports.
• This course will help students to be prepared to enter the scientific computation community in academia or in industry.

GRADING POLICY:

Paper Readings/Presentations: 35%

• Basic papers: 15%
• Research papers: 20%

Research Project: 35%

• Research survey content and writing 25%
• Presentation of the workshop paper 10%

Participation: 30%

• Conference organization and book edition participation 10%
• Class Participation in paper discussions 10%
• Homework 10%

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE: To be announced

COURSE MATERIAL: To be announced