CS 5204 Operating Systems

Fall 2003

Tuesday, 4:00pm-6:45pm, NVC Room 322

CRN 95281

The course web site is available on the Virginia Tech Blackboard server at http://www.learn.vt.edu/. Once you log on using your Virginia Tech PID and password, in the section My Courses follow (after August 24, 2003) the link Operating Systems Fall-2003. The link is present only if you are registered for the course. This page contains overall information about the course, as follows:

Course Description
Instructor
Textbook and other materials
Grading
Graduate Honor System
Lecture Schedule

Course Description:

Issues in the design and functioning of operating systems. Emphasis on synchronization of concurrent activity in both centralized and distributed systems. Deadlock, scheduling, performance analysis, operating system design, and memory systems including distributed file systems.

Instructor:

Denis Gracanin, Ph.D., P.E.

Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Virginia Tech
Northern Virginia Center, Room 310
7054 Haycock Road
Falls Church, VA 22043

Phone: (703) 538-8378
Fax: (703) 538-8348
Email: gracanin@vt.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 2-4pm

Textbook:

Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Maarten Van Steen, Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458, 2002, ISBN 0-13-088893-1.

Other materials:

Supplemental material: http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/esm/app/author_tanenbaum/custom/dist_sys_1e/
Course web site (Blackboard): http://www.learn.vt.edu/
Course web page: http://www.cs.vt.edu/~gracanin/course/cs5204/

Grading:

Midterm exam (closed book): 30% (October 14, 2003, 4-7pm)
Final exam (closed book): 30% (December 16, 2003, 4-7pm)
Project 25% (November 30, 2003, by 11:59pm)
Homework: 15% (September 21, October 19, November 16, 2003, by 11:59pm) - three homeworks 5% each.

Graduate Honor System:

Please review Virginia Tech’s Graduate Honor System, for more information see:
http://filebox.vt.edu/studentinfo/gradhonor/
All assignments are individual, no collaboration is allowed. You are not allowed to receive help from others. You are not allowed to provide help to others.
You can discuss course topics and related issues as long they do not relate to homeworks or project specifics.
When in doubt, consult with the instructor first.
All code will be checked by a tool that detects similarities and warns about possible plagiarism.

Lecture Schedule:

Week	Date	Topic	Textbook
1	August 26, 2003	Lecture 1: Introduction	Chapter 1
2	September 2, 2003	Lecture 2: Communication	Chapter 2
3	September 9, 2003	Lecture 3: Processes	Chapter 3
4	September 16, 2003	Lecture 4: Naming	Chapter 4
5	September 23, 2003	Lecture 5: Synchronization	Chapter 5
6	September 30, 2003	Lecture 6: Consistency and Replication	Chapter 6
7	October 7, 2003	Lecture 7: Fault Tolerance	Chapter 7
8	October 14, 2003	Midterm Exam	Chapters 1-6
9	October 21, 2003	Lecture 8: Security Principles	Chapter 8.1-8.4
10	October 28, 2003	Lecture 9: Security Examples	Chapter 8.5-8.8
11	November 4, 2003	Lecture 10: Distributed Object-Based System	Chapter 9
12	November 11, 2003	Lecture 11: Distributed File Systems	Chapter 10
13	November 18, 2003	Lecture 12: Distributed Document-Based and Coordination-Based Systems	Chapters 11, 12
14	November 25, 2003	THANKSGIVING	N/A
15	December 2, 2003	Project Presentations	N/A
16	December 9, 2003	Project Presentations	N/A
17	December 16, 2003	Final Exam	Chapters 1-12