CSCI.6962 Distributed Computing over the Internet-- Spring 2004

Instructor: Carlos Varela
Office: 109 Amos Eaton
Office Hours: Mo, Th 4pm-5pm; or by appointment
Meeting Place: JEC, Room 5119
Meeting Hours: Mo, Th 2-3:20pm
TA: Wei-Jen Wang
TA Email Address: wangw5@rpi.edu
TA Office: Science Center Room 1W01(TA office), or AE117(WWC Lab)
TA Office Hours: Tuesday 12:00-2:00 in 1w01 or by email.
Home page: http://www.cs.rpi.edu/courses/spring04/dci/
WebCT Page: http://webct.rpi.edu/SCRIPT/CSCI_6962_01_0401/scripts/serve_home

Important Announcement

Demo your final project on 4/26.

Course Objectives

This course studies theoretical foundations---namely Petri nets, 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

Petri-Nets
Pi-Calculus
Actors
Mobile Ambients
Join Calculus

Programming Languages and Frameworks

Java RMI, Serialization, Concurrency Model
Objective CAML; Jocaml
CSP in Java; Nomadic PICT
Actor Foundry; SALSA

Research Topics

Coordination
Mobility
Naming
Scalability
Heterogeneity
Security

Tentative Course Syllabus


Date	Topic	Grade
01/22*	Introduction to Distributed Computing over the Internet Part I -- Models/Theory. Petri-Nets. (exercise 1)
01/26*	Pi-Calculus - Introduction, Operational Semantics (exercise 2)
01/29*	Pi-Calculus - Operational Semantics, Bisimilarity and Congruence (exercise 3)
02/02*	Actors - Introduction, Operational Semantics (exercise 4)
02/05	Actors - Operational Semantics, Expression Equivalence (exercise 5)
02/09	Mobile Ambients (exercise 6)(Extra Handout)
02/12	Join Calculus (exercise 7)
02/17	Partial Exam (solution)	20%
02/19	Introduction to Distributed Computing over the Internet Part II -- Programming Languages and Frameworks (2 hour class)
02/23	Java RMI, Sockets, Reflection, Serialization (2 hour class) (project 1) Due 03/02
02/26	Java Concurrency -- (Canceled. No class today.)	7.5%
03/01	CSP in Java / PICT
03/04	PICT / Nomadic PICT -- (Project 2) (Using Pict) (Using Nomadic Pict) (Nomadic Pict: Getting started) Due 03/16	7.5%
03/15	Objective CAML (the instructions of using Ocaml)
03/18	JOCAML -- (the instructions of using JOCAML) (JOCAML: Getting started)(Programming Project 3) Due 03/26	7.5%
03/22	Actor Foundry
03/25	SALSA -- (Programming Project 4) (SALSA: Getting Started) Due 04/05	7.5%
03/29	Introduction to Distributed Computing over the Internet Part III -- Research Topics -- Selected Paper Critiques and Presentations by Students (Two presentations each class) (Due today: Final Project Proposal)	20%
04/01	Pi-calculus extension (Markus) (Mayuresh) (The Paper Critiques and Presentations Guideline. And also the schedule.)
04/05
04/08	Programming Environment I (Wei-Jen) (Terrell)
04/12	Programming Environment II (Bryan Kate) (Randy Yung)
04/15	Spam (Charles Mathis) (Brandeis Hill)
04/19	Peer to Peer (Owen F. Kellett) (Jonathan Koop)
04/22	Other issue (Christopher Werner) (Dan Tracy)
04/26	Final Project Presentation and demo (5 minutes each group)	20%
	Class Participation	10%

There will be no classes during the first week (Jan. 12th and Jan 15th). The two lectures will be replaced by making the subsequent four lectures two hours long, i.e., from 2-4pm (rather than 1 hour and 20 minutes long).

Reading Material -- Part I

Petri Nets(PDF) by James Peterson.
- In Computing Surveys, Vol 9, No. 3, September 1977.
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

Java

RMI
Sockets
Reflection
Serialization
Concurrency -- Excerpt from Concurrent Programming in Java by Doug Lea.
Online Java Tutorial: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/

JCSP- Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) in Java
PICT -- Nomadic PICT
Objective CAML -- Jocaml
Actor Foundry
SALSA download -- OOPSLA paper

Research Papers -- Part III

The Paper Critiques and Presentations Guideline. And also the schedule.

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

ACM Transactions of Internet Technologies
IEEE Internet Computing
International COORDINATION Conferences
International Middleware Conferences
International WWW Conferences
Principles of Programming Languages (POPL)
Object Oriented Programming Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA)

Here are some of the links:

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.

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 13, 2004.