Classes will be decided week-to-week.
| Week(s) | Week of | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | 1/27 | Intro; centralized vs distributed systems; development environment setup |
| 02 | 2/3 | Multi-processing & network programming — Part 1 |
| 03 | 2/10 | Multi-processing & network programming — Part 2 |
| 04 | 2/17 | Multi-processing & network programming — Part 3 |
| 05 | 2/24 | Containerization: Docker and Kubernetes |
| 06 | 3/3 | DevOps and CI/CD |
| 07 | 3/10 | Integrate application to infrastructure |
| 08 | 3/17 | Distributed Architectures |
| 09 | 3/24 | Communication and Coordination |
| 10 | 3/31 | Consistency & Replication |
| 11 | 4/7 | Fault Tolerance |
| 12 | 4/21 | Security |
| 13 | 4/28 | Deploying on k8s on cloud-based virtual bare metal nodes |
| 14 | 5/5 | Deploying on k8s on cloud-based k8s |
| 15 | 5/12 | Final individual projects due |
Follow the link above to the respective week’s materials below.
Chapter 4 of “Distributed Systems” addresses communication protocols and models crucial for distributed systems [1]. It emphasizes structuring protocols into layers and explores communication models such as Remote Procedure Call (RPC) and Message-Oriented Middleware (MOM). The chapter also discusses multicasting [1].
Key areas covered include:
Foundations of Communication: The chapter explains the importance of communication in distributed systems, highlighting the need for processes to adhere to protocols [1, 2]. It references the OSI model, which divides communication into seven layers, each offering specific services to the layer above [3]. The physical layer focuses on transmitting bits, while the data link layer deals with error-free transmission [4]. The network layer handles routing, and the transport layer provides reliable data transfer [4]. Types of Communication: It distinguishes between connection-oriented and connectionless services [3]. The chapter also categorizes communication based on synchronization (synchronous vs. asynchronous) and persistence (persistent vs. transient) [5]. Remote Procedure Call (RPC): RPC aims to hide the intricacies of message passing and is suited for client-server applications [1]. The steps involved in RPC execution include client stub activation, message construction, message transmission, server stub activation, procedure execution, and result return [6]. The chapter also mentions asynchronous RPCs, where the client continues processing without waiting for immediate results, using callbacks for later notification [7]. Multicast RPC is introduced as sending an RPC request to a group of servers [8]. Message-Oriented Communication: This section discusses sockets as communication endpoints for applications [9]. It explains message-queuing systems, including the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP), emphasizing loose coupling where senders and receivers don’t need to be active simultaneously [10]. Multicast Communication: The chapter covers sending data to multiple receivers [1]. It discusses application-level tree-based multicasting, flooding-based multicasting, and gossip-based data dissemination [11]. Application-level multicasting involves constructing an overlay network for efficient data distribution, but the selection of participating nodes might not consider performance metrics [12]. Gossip-based dissemination relies on epidemic behavior for information propagation, lacking a central coordination component [13]. Gossip-based data dissemination: This approach uses epidemic behavior to rapidly spread information among a large collection of nodes using only local information [13].