Distributed Systems: Together we are Stronger

General description

Have you ever experienced the true warmth of the north? Have you ever experienced midnight sun? Do you like beautiful nature charming cities and pure water? Then Stockholm is something for you!!! You will enjoy all these pleasures while learning a lot on what makes Google sail to the Bay of Pirates: Distributed Systems!!!

Academic information

Content and topics:

Many computer programs today are built as, or make use of, a distributed system; for example: the web, multi-user gaming or file sharing. Understanding the potential, problems and limitations of distributed systems become more and more important; the days of sequential programing are soon coming to an end so be prepared! In this course we will look at the problems we have in distributed systems and how we can learn to live with them. We will explore concepts such as logical time, global state, consensus and ordered messaging but also look at P2P systems and how they can be used to build large scale distributed content delivery platforms (read BitTorrent). We will mostly stay at the application layer but will touch on aspects of different network technologies. Understanding P2P systems is important not only from a technical point but also from the economical and social impact they will have. During the course you will implement many of the algorithms that we discuss and in doing so get the opportunity to learn a new programming language. We us the programming language Erlang since it is very easy to implement distributed systems ... and it's always fun to lean something new, right?

Learning goals and objectives:

Students should after the course be able to explain and reason about the potential and fundamental problems of distributed systems.

Examination type:

The course will have examination in the form of written and oral presentations of programing. Much of the examination will be based on group work but each member of the group should be able to explain the solution.

ECTS credits issued:

None

Information for applicants

Selection criteria:

Motivation letter.

Practical arrangements

All of the following are covered by the event fee:

Lodging:

Participants will sleep in student rooms.

Meals:

Transportation:

Public transportation.