CSCI.6500 Distributed Computing over the Internet-- Spring 2007

Instructor: Carlos Varela
Office: 109 Amos Eaton, x6912
Office Hours: Mo, Th 11:30am-12:30pm; or by appointment
Meeting Place: Russell Sage 2112
Meeting Hours: Mo, Th 10-11:20am
Home page: http://www.cs.rpi.edu/academics/courses/spring07/dci/
WebCT Page

Course Objectives

This course studies theoretical foundations---namely process calculi, actors, join calculus, and mobile ambients---and practical issues in the design of concurrent and distributed programming languages. We compare communication and synchronization aspects in actor-, process-, and object-oriented concurrent programming models. We review current research on coordination, mobility, naming, security, fault-tolerance, and scalability in the context of distributed computing over the Internet.

Pre-requisites

CSCI.4430 and CSCI.4220, or equivalent, or permission of instructor. The student should be familiar with at least one high-level programming language and basic network programming concepts. In particular, this course will assume familiarity with Java and programming with TCP/IP sockets. Knowledge of programming language semantics and lambda-calculus would be helpful but is not mandatory.

Course Contents

Models of Concurrent and Distributed Computing

Pi-Calculus
Actors
Mobile Ambients
Join Calculus

Programming Languages and Frameworks

Oz
SALSA
Jocaml

Research Topics

Coordination
Mobility
Naming
Scalability
Heterogeneity
Security

Tentative Course Syllabus

Date

Topic

Grade

01/18

Course Overview. Introduction to Distributed Computing over the Internet Part I -- Models/Theory.

01/22

Pi-Calculus - Introduction

01/25

Pi-Calculus - Operational Semantics

01/29

Pi-Calculus - Bisimilarity and Congruence

02/01

No lecture

02/05

No lecture

02/08

Actors - Introduction

02/12

Actors - Operational Semantics

02/15

Actors - Expression Equivalence

02/20

Mobile Ambients

02/22

Join Calculus

02/26

Partial Exam

20%

03/01

Introduction to Distributed Computing over the Internet Part II -- Programming Languages and Frameworks

03/12

Oz Concurrency, 1.oz-- Programming Assignment 1 Due 03/23

15%

03/15

Distributed Oz, 2.oz

03/19

Oz Concurrent and Distributed Programming Techniques

03/22

SALSA Concurrency, examples.zip -- Programming Assignment 2 Due 04/03

15%

03/26

SALSA Distribution and Mobility, dist-examples.zip

03/29

SALSA Concurrent and Distributed Programming Techniques

04/02

No lecture

04/05

No lecture

04/09

No lecture

04/12

Objective CAML

04/16

JOCAML

04/19

Introduction to Distributed Computing over the Internet Part III -- Research Topics

20%

04/19

Stephen Nerbetski	Transactors: a programming model for maintaining globally consistent distributed state in unreliable environments by Field and Varela
Brian Boodman	The ATOMOS Transactional Programming Language by Carlstrom et al.
Marcus Griep	Distributed Shared Memory Using the .NET Framework by Seidmann

04/23

Medha Atre	Pastry: Scalable, decentralized object location and routing for large-scale peer-to-peer systems by Rowstron and Druschel
Konstantin Mertsalov	Analysis of Caching and Replication Strategies for Web Applications by Sivasubramanian, Pierre, van Steen and Alonso
Stephen Kelley	Automatic Community Discovery in Peer-to-Peer Systems by Gu and Wei

04/26

Benjamin A. Levinn	Distributed computing meets game theory: robust mechanisms for rational secret sharing and multiparty computation by Abraham, Doley, Gohen and Halpern
Jiao Tao	A Study of MPI Performance Analysis Tools on Blue Gene/L by Chung, Walkup Wen and Yu
Huxley Seidman	Searching for experts on the Web: A review of contemporary expertise locator systems by Becerra-Fernandez

04/30

Final Project/Paper Presentations-- Proposals Due 03/30

30%

Class Participation Extra Credit

Reading Material -- Part I

An Introduction to the Pi-Calculus (PS) (PDF) by Joachim Parrow. pp. 3-14, 25-28, 39-42.

In Handbook of Process Algebra, ed. Bergstra, Ponse, Smolka, pages 479-543, Elsevier 2001.
URL: http://www.it.kth.se/~joachim/intro.ps

A Foundation for Actor Computation (PS) (PDF) by Agha, Mason, Smith, Talcott. pp. 1-27.

In Journal of Functional Programming, 1996.
URL: http://osl.cs.uiuc.edu/Papers/actor-semantics.ps

Mobile Ambients (PS) (PDF) by Cardelli and Gordon.

In Theoretical Computer Science, special issue on Coordination, D. Le Métayer Editor. Vol 240/1, July 2000, pages 177-213, Elsevier.
URL: http://research.microsoft.com/Users/luca/Papers/MobileAmbients.US.ps

Join Calculus (PS) (PDF) by Fournet and Gonthier.

"The reflexive chemical abstract machine and the join-calculus". In Proceedings Principles Of Programming Languages 1996.
URL: http://pauillac.inria.fr/~fournet/papers/popl-96.ps.gz

Software Links, Papers, and Tutorials -- Part II

Research Papers -- Part III

Students will critique and present selected papers from recent journal and conference publications, including but not limited to:

Transactions on Internet Technology.
Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems.
Annual Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages.
Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications
Coordination Conference Proceedings in Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volumes 1061, 1282, 1594, and 1906.
Middleware Conference Proceedings in Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volumes 1795 and 2218.
International World Wide Web Conferences
IEEE Internet Computing

You may also search papers in CiteSeer.

Paper critique and presentation guidelines.

Academic Integrity

The Rensselaer Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities defines several types of academic dishonesty, all of which are applicable to this class. Students found in violation of academic dishonesty policies will receive a failing grade for this course.

Please contact the instructor if there is any question about academic (dis)honesty.

Last Updated -- April 12, 2007.