FIT3142 Distributed computing originally replaced FIT3010 Grid Computing, as a result of the 2010 BSE and BCS reviews. The unit incorporated mostly content previously used in FIT3010, some content from FIT4001, while some FIT3010 content has migrated to FIT3143. The 2015 revision of the unit increases emphasis on foundation content, and reduces emphasis on Grids, to better accommodate prerequisites, and newer distributed system architectures.

Nov 2011 - add ECE2041 to prerequisites as an alternative to FIT3141 as FIT3141 will not run in 2012. Effective S1, 2012.

FIT3142 Distributed computing replaces FIT3010 Grid Computing. Incremental synopis changes to reflect need for more coverage of topics related to cloud computing. Changes to be introduced in Sem 2 2011.

12 Feb 2015: Updating the unit learning outcomes to be AQF compliant.

19 Feb 2015: Incremental changes to curriculum to fully align content to new prerequisite units, i.e. FIT2100 Operating Systems, FIT3159 Computer Architecture, and FIT3165 Computer Networks, in the new BCS, BSE and BIT CNS cores, and better align content with current prerequisite units, FIT2069, FIT2070, and ECE2041 in the BSE/BCS curriculum, while increasing emphasis on foundation content.

11 Jun 2015: AQF compliant statement of unit learning objectives to reflect actual Level 2, 3 and 4 objectives in courseware.

Sept 2015: Minor updates for course architecture. Effective 2015

October 2016: Add ECE3141 as an alternative prerequisite to ECE2041 and FIT3141 as neither will run in 2017.

March 2017: Revise assessments to comply with new Assessment in Coursework Units: Development and Implementation of an Assessment Regime Procedures.

November 2017: Amendment to prerequisites to allow for teach-out of course 2770: Add FIT3159 as an alternative to FIT2069, FIT2100 as an alternative to FIT2070 and FIT3165 as an alternative to ECE2041/3141

3/11/17: Admin - fixing weird characters in prereqs generated by Monatar.

22/06/2018: Admin - adding reasons for change - Update to assessment removing the 30 minute reading and noting time from the exam.

20/9/2019: Admin - updating exam duration to include additional 10 minutes as per University requirement.

02/10/2020 Admin: Update to include new assessment and teaching approach fields as per Handbook requirements.

9/12/2020: Amend prerequisites to remove old units and prerequisites in place for teach out of course 2770 (the few students in this degree will be manually managed).

15/12/2020 Admin: updated Assessments to include mapping to ULOs.

16/02/2021 CE: revise assessments to better accommodate both online delivery, and changed student intake from a larger range of majors. The assignment LOs and tasks will be split across weekly flipped tutorial preparation tasks to spread learning load, synchronise reinforcement with lecture delivery, and provide a much shorter feedback cycle. Concentration of learning effort and feedback into two assignment parts was not producing as good learning outcomes as feedback was in large increments and only twice per semester. Many students from BIT and BCS are also less well equipped than BSE students in supporting skills like report writing that distracted from the key LOs in the assignment and complicated accurate assessments.

24/05/2021 CE: revise assessments to better accommodate both online delivery, and changed student intake from a larger range of majors. The assignment LOs and tasks will be split across weekly laboratory (L4)and flipped tutorial (L3) preparation tasks to spread learning load, synchronise reinforcement with lecture delivery, and provide a much shorter feedback cycle. Detailed rationale and tabular breakdowns are in two documents: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13dlQZqP7E4H7_nsbCWBsXetchDDnihPz?usp=sharing Tutorial hours amended to reflect actual in class hours since 2020 to accommodate online and hybrid class allocations.

This is an elective unit for the Bachelor of Information Technology and Systems (BITS), and for the Bachelor of Computer Science (BCompSci).

It is a core unit for Bachelor of Software Engineering (BSE) degree, and an elective after 2016. It provides a comprehensive introduction to distributed computing, including programming interfaces used in distributed systems, including clusters, grids and clouds. For the BCompSci and BSE majors, the unit provides additional breadth in understanding distributed computing applications in a networked environment.

It enables students to: understand distributed computing systems; understand some of the commonly used programming interfaces and architectures in clusters, grids and clouds, and related performance and reliability concepts.

At the completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. analyse and evaluate interprocess communications in networks, and associated programming interfaces;
2. analyse and evaluate remote procedure call and remote object request broker mechanisms in distributed systems;
3. analyse and model basic problems in distributed computing, especially in relation to concurrency, parallelism, synchronisation, deadlocks, and safety properties;
4. analyse and evaluate differences between various distributed computing models and widely used distributed computing schemes;
5. analyse, evaluate and model basic functional and performance concepts in distributed systems and identify frequent causes of performance problems in distributed applications;
6. analyse and model basic software and hardware reliability problems in distributed systems and identify frequent causes of reliability problems in distributed applications;
7. analyse and evaluate some of the enabling technologies e.g. high-speed links, for building computer clusters, distributed storage systems, grids and clouds;
8. analyse and evaluate the operating principles of the cloud computing, grid computing, clustering, and web services middleware used to implement large distributed systems, including basic security mechanisms;
9. analyse and model in application scalability in distributed systems, and criteria for porting applications to distributed systems;
10. implement programs using common distributed computing programming interfaces, including sockets, and some higher level APIs.

020113

Modern computer systems rely increasingly on distributed computing mechanisms, implemented often as clusters, web services, grids and clouds. Distributed computing systems can provide seamless (or web-like) access to a variety of networked resources, e.g. processing cores, large data stores and information repositories, expensive instruments, high-speed links, sensor networks, and multimedia services for a wide range of applications. This unit provides foundation knowledge and understanding of the basic mechanisms required to implement distributed computing systems, especially clouds, grids, web services and clusters. Topics covered include: Introduction to parallel and distributed computing mechanisms, concurrency and synchronisation, monitors, deadlocks, concurrent program analysis, computational and service-oriented grids, clusters and clouds. Distributed applications, and their performance and reliability in relation to processor and network performance constraints.

Technological requirements

Students must regularly check Moodle for announcements.

While laboratory machines running Linux will be provided, students are encouraged to install Linux on their own computer(s)

On-campus

Examination (2 hours and 10 minutes): 60%; In-semester assessment: 40%

• Laboratory Work: 25% - ULO all
• Tutorial Exercises: 15% - ULO all
• Examination: 60% - ULO all

Minimum total expected workload equals 12 hours per week comprising:

(a.) Contact hours for on-campus students:

(b.) Additional requirements (all students):

Tutorial: MURPA seminar. Network lab required.

FIT/ClSIT

(FIT1047 or FIT3159) and FIT2100 and (FIT3165 or FIT4165)