Assignments for presentations:
The articles and links here represent starting points for a presentation. Some articles are a subject in themselves and the presentation will focus on just that article. Other articles represent a system and are more an overview. Such an article is usually more on the surface (also: easier to read) and the presentation requires that you also look at related articles. Therefore, the following list is based on the subject that the presentation should have.
Make sure to use an example for these systems,
preferably the same when you compare two. Demonstrate and explain the following
perspectives: the programmers’ (what he does, which concepts she sees and uses),
the end-users’, the interactions between system components in response to the
actions in the example.
1.
Security, the 802.11 case [WEP] (1 group)
a.
The paper by Borisov, Goldberg and
Wagner describing some insecurity problems. Use the paper to obtain
pointers to describe WEP security, including the architecture. The IEEE 802.11i
standard describes solutions. The book by Coulouris c.s. describes weakness in
the entire architecture.
2.
The Grid, project Globus (1 group)
b.
Papers
on this site at http://www.globus.org/research/papers.html#IEEE-CS-2
particularly
c.
What
is the grid: http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/~foster/Articles/WhatIsTheGrid.pdf
and the Grid
anatomy
d.
Select
a some specific issue, like separation of
computation and data scheduling
3.
Peer to peer systems, 2 groups can work on this, synchronize your work
and presentations.
a.
What
is the essence of peer2peer? Take it as a challenge to determine a point of
view in this such that, after your definition, we can classify systems as being
p2p or not. Pay attention to the architecture, the algorithms, the addressed
issues, the goals.
b.
The
basic article on the Chord system at MIT, the web site.
c.
Microsoft Research’s Pastry and Squirrel
d.
File
sharing with Bittorrent, Gnutella, Freenet
(look at the paper section).
4.
Systems based on distributed
objects, DCOM and CORBA – 2
groups can work on this but if so, discuss and distribute the work together. For
this it may be useful to first plan the rough targets of the presentation and
subsequently search for the information. Relate it to the ‘concepts’.
a.
Starting
point is the book, chapter 9 – use references herein.
b.
Microsofts
DCOM, a
fairly dated description of it, search the web, some more info on (D)COM
c.
OMG’s
CORBA
d.
A
comparison of DCOM and CORBA
5.
Naming and naming systems (1
group)
a.
Starting
point is the book, the chapter on naming. Pay particular attention to the
problem(s) that must be solved with such a system.
b.
Example
systems: The domain name service (see e.g. the book), Intentional naming system, P2P Intential naming system.
c.
Address
also location or mobility issues (see the book again).
6.
Systems based on coordination
– 2 groups can work on this, distribute the work together
a.
Starting
point is the book, chapter 12 – may use references herein to select one
additional article. Make sure that you pay attention to the scope of these
systems.
b.
Coordination
is usually focussed on connecting distributed services; the Berkeley Service Discovery System addresses
advertisement and discovery. It is part of the Ninja Project.
c.
Other
systems are TIBCO’s TIB/rendezvouz (not so much referenced) and Sun’s Jini;
related is Microsoft’s Universal Plug ‘n Play at http://www.upnp.org
7.
Systematic introduction of fault
tolerance (1 group, 2 groups are
allowed given a good work distribution)
a.
Starting
point is the book.
b.
Byzantine
Fault tolerant systems at http://www.pmg.lcs.mit.edu/bft
c.
Description
of approach, e.g., : http://www.pmg.lcs.mit.edu/~castro/osdi2000.pdf
d.
New
contribution in the Base approach and system (library), http://www.pmg.lcs.mit.edu/~rodrigo/base.pdf
8.
Security (1 group)
a.
MIT’s Kerberos system; give the basic
ideas, assumptions, purpose. Show the system architecture and relate to the
notions discussed in the lectures.
9.
(Multi-) agent systems (1
group) – this topic is not available this year unless you come with a good
proposal for new cases/literature, beyond the material below.
a.
A nice
starting point: http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/multi.html
b.
An
overview (not too recent though): http://lia.deis.unibo.it/confs/ESAW00/pdf/ESAW07.pdf
c.
The
foundation for intelligent physical agents: http://www.fipa.org
works on standardization and coherence
d.
The
madkit system at http://www.madkit.org and
articles
e.
Madkit
architecture overview: Articles/madkit-overview.pdf
and dealing with heterogeneity: Articles/madkit-heterogeneity.pdf.
f.
Pay
particular attention to what these systems are really good for, what their contribution is in contrast with what
we already have. Also, draw lines to other systems (peer2peer, Corba etc.) if
you see fit.