Overview
Modern Computer Systems commonly rely on Distributed and cloud computing systems which enable seamless access to networked resources such as processors, data stores, sensor networks, cyber-physical systems, and multimedia services. In this unit, you will gain foundation knowledge and understanding of the system models and enabling technologies, including clustering and virtualization, and cloud computing. You will learn the core concepts of distributed computing such as interprocess communication, concurrency and synchronisation, transactions and concurrency control, and distributed databases and files. This unit also exposes you to distributed system characteristics of scalability, heterogeneity, security, and failure handling. The areas of mobile and ubiquitous computing and the social impact arising from the ubiquity of distributed systems will also be explored. You will learn to develop secure and reliable distributed computing applications and web services that can perform concurrent operations across multiple computers.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Prerequisite: COIT11134 and COIT11237.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2022
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes – in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Discipline Leader Review
Unit content needs an update to improve currency and development of practical skills.
Review and go through a substantial update to the unit content to include emergent technologies and develop skills with the use of industry-relevant software tools as applicable in the field of distributed systems. Include materials to improve the development of practical skills in the currently taught theoretical aspects.
- Develop software applications that can run in parallel and on multiple networked computers using approaches such as multi-threading, and client-server architecture
- Design and develop secure distributed applications using approaches such as RESTful webservices
- Implement software applications that enable concurrent access to distributed databases
- Analyse the use of algorithms and other mechanisms such as replication and load balancing to execute coordinated concurrent processes in distributed systems
- Examine the technology needs and social impact arising from ubiquitous distributed systems
- Evaluate techniques for creating secure, reliable and efficient distributed systems.
Australian Computer Society (ACS) recognises the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). SFIA is a widely used and consistent definition of ICT skills. SFIA is increasingly being used when developing job descriptions and role profiles. ACS members can use the tool MySFIA to build a skills profile at https://www.acs.org.au/professionalrecognition/mysfia-b2c.html
This unit contributes to the following workplace skills as defined by SFIA 8. The SFIA code is included:
- Software Design (SWDN)
- Systems integration and build (SINT)
- Programming/Software Development (PROG),
- Database Design (DBDS)
- User Experience Evaluation (USEV)
- Testing (TEST)
- System Installation and Removal (HSIN)
- Application Support (ASUP)
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
1 - Practical Assessment - 30% | ||||||
2 - Practical Assessment - 35% | ||||||
3 - Written Assessment - 35% |
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
1 - Communication | ||||||
2 - Problem Solving | ||||||
3 - Critical Thinking | ||||||
4 - Information Literacy | ||||||
5 - Team Work | ||||||
6 - Information Technology Competence | ||||||
7 - Cross Cultural Competence | ||||||
8 - Ethical practice | ||||||
9 - Social Innovation | ||||||
10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures |
Textbooks
There are no required textbooks.
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
- JDK 11 - OpenJDK
- Apache NetBeans IDE 12.4 (available from https://netbeans.apache.org/download/nb124/nb124.html)
- MySQL Community Server 8.0.26 (available from https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/)
- Apache TomEE 8.0.0 TomEE Plus (available from https://tomee.apache.org/download.html)
- Jakarta EE 8 (available from https://jakarta.ee/release/8/)
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: Harvard (author-date)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
m.tom@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
An Introduction to Distributed Systems
Chapter
1 and 2
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Inter-process Communication
Chapter
4
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Process and Thread Management – Operating System Support
Chapter
7
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Distributed Objects and Introduction to Web Services
Chapter
5 and Lecture Notes
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Web Services
Chapter
9 and Lecture Notes
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Security in Distributed Systems
Chapter
11
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Coordination and Agreement
Chapter
15
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Transactions and Concurrent Control
Chapter
16
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Distributed Transactions
Chapter
17
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Distributed File Systems and Name Services
Chapter
12 and 13
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Replication and Fault Tolerance
Chapter
18
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing
Chapter
19
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Unit Coordinator
Dr Mary Tom
College of Information and Communications Technology
School of Engineering and Technology
Central Queensland University
Brisbane
Phone: +61 7 32951119
Email: m.tom@cqu.edu.au
1 Practical Assessment
Your task for this assignment is to design, implement, test and document a client/server system which allows concurrent access to multiple clients. The purpose of this assignment is to assess your competency in Java TCP networking, multi-threading, and object serialization. This assignment task is to assess your skills in practicing the theoretical concepts learnt in Weeks 1 - 5. Further details are in the Assignment 1 Specification document available on the Unit website .
Week 6 Wednesday (20 Apr 2022) 11:45 pm AEST
Week 8 Thursday (5 May 2022)
Marked Assignments will be returned during Week 8.
- Appropriate analysis and design of a software application using networking and client-server communication for the given problem
- Correct implementation of the application using networking, multi-threading, and object serialization.
- Correct incorporation of multi-user access to the software application
- Use of good programming techniques/practices
- Rigorous testing of software application.
- Develop software applications that can run in parallel and on multiple networked computers using approaches such as multi-threading, and client-server architecture
- Design and develop secure distributed applications using approaches such as RESTful webservices
2 Practical Assessment
Your task for this assignment is to design, implement, test and document a secure three tier client/server system which allows concurrent access to multiple clients. Your system will have graphical user interface, a business logic layer, and a back-end database. This assignment task is to assess your skills in practicing the theoretical concepts learnt in Weeks 1- 8 and in the pre-requisite units. You will be completing the software design and development working in team consisting of 3 - 5 members. You will develop a test plan and test the software application individually. You will individually write and submit a report documenting the testing details and any other theoretical aspects required. Further details are in the Assignment 2 Specification document available on the Unit website .
Week 9 Thursday (12 May 2022) 11:45 pm AEST
Week 11 Thursday (26 May 2022)
Marked Assignment will be returned to you during Week 11.
- Analyse the given problem and design a 3 tier client-server software application using distributed system concepts.
- Correct design and implementation of a software solution to provide a secure multi-user client access using one of the approaches of distributed objects, web services, or peer-to-peer communication
- Use of good programming techniques/practices
- User interface design following user interface design guidelines
- Rigorous testing of software application
- Correct and concise documentation as required
- Good collaboration working in a small team.
- Develop software applications that can run in parallel and on multiple networked computers using approaches such as multi-threading, and client-server architecture
- Design and develop secure distributed applications using approaches such as RESTful webservices
- Implement software applications that enable concurrent access to distributed databases
- Analyse the use of algorithms and other mechanisms such as replication and load balancing to execute coordinated concurrent processes in distributed systems
- Evaluate techniques for creating secure, reliable and efficient distributed systems.
3 Written Assessment
Your task in this assignment is to demonstrate your understanding of the role distributed systems play in facilitating pervasive computing and critically evaluate the technology needs in terms of reliability and security and the related issues impacting the society. This assessment task is to assess your knowledge in the topics learnt in Weeks 9 - 12 as well as your understanding of the current developments in distributed systems. Further details are available in the Assignment 3 Specification document available on the Unit website.
Review/Exam Week Monday (6 June 2022) 11:45 pm AEST
Marking sheet with comments will be returned to you after publication of grades.
- Clear demonstration of your understanding of the importance of distributed system principles of security, reliability etc. as per the requirement
- Demonstration of good understanding of the topics related to current developments in Distributed Systems as given in the specification
- Demonstration of deep understanding of the theoretical concepts learnt in relation to fault tolerance
- Critical review of relevant information and logical construction of arguments
- Relevant discussion of the impact of specific aspects of distributed systems to society
- Appropriate formatting, clarity of expressions, and relevant and correct use of references
- Analyse the use of algorithms and other mechanisms such as replication and load balancing to execute coordinated concurrent processes in distributed systems
- Examine the technology needs and social impact arising from ubiquitous distributed systems
- Evaluate techniques for creating secure, reliable and efficient distributed systems.
As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.
Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.
When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.
Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.
As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.
What is a breach of academic integrity?
A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.
Why is academic integrity important?
A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.
Where can I get assistance?
For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.
What can you do to act with integrity?
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