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 an understanding of the system models and their enabling technologies. You will learn the core concepts of distributed computing, such as interprocess communication, concurrency and synchronisation, transactions and concurrency control as well as 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
Prerequisites: COIT12200 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 - 2024
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 Unit Coordinator reflection and teaching team feedback
The technology-related contents of this unit including the textbook are outdated and don't follow the current industry technology trends.
Replace the current textbook and introduce the implementation of theoretical concepts such as "consensus systems", "secure interprocess communications", and "load-balancing" techniques.
Feedback from Student feedback
Some contents are difficult to understand and there aren't enough resources to explain the content.
Revise unit materials and provide more real-life examples to help students understand the applicability of contents in real-life situations.
- Evaluate techniques for creating secure, reliable, and efficient distributed systems by examining the technology needs and social impact arising from ubiquitous distributed systems
- Design and develop secure distributed applications in a distributed service-oriented architecture
- Analyse the use of algorithms and mechanisms to execute coordinated concurrent processes in distributed systems
- Implement software applications that enable concurrent access to distributed databases and transactions.
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:
- Solution architecture (ARCH)
- 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)
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment - 20% | ||||
| 2 - Practical Assessment - 35% | ||||
| 3 - Reflective Practice Assignment - 45% | ||||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 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.
Additional Textbook Information
The following two books are good resources to get more in-depth information about distributed systems:
1- Designing distributed systems: patterns and paradigms for scalable, reliable services.
ISBN: 9781491983645. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Burns, B. (2018)
2- Understanding Distributed Systems, Second Edition: What every developer should know about large distributed applications.
ISBN 978-1838430214
Vitillo, R. (2022)
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
- MySQL Community Server 8.0.26 (available from https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/)
- NetBeans 20 (available from: https://netbeans.apache.org/front/main/download/nb20/)
- Open JDK 21 (available from: https://jdk.java.net/21/)
- Jakarta EE 10 (available from https://jakarta.ee/release/10/)
- Apache TomEE 10 TomEE Plus (available from https://tomee.apache.org/download.html)
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: Harvard (author-date)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
f.sanati@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
An Introduction to Distributed System -
System Characterization and Models
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Inter-process Communication
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Process and Thread Management – Operating System Support
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Distributed Objects and Introduction to Web Services
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Web Services
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Security in Distributed Systems
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Coordination and Agreement
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Transactions and Concurrent Control
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Distributed Transactions
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Distributed File Systems and Name Services
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Replication and Fault Tolerance
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Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing
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Contact information for Dr Farzad Sanati: Email: f.sanati@cqu.edu.au; Office: Level 6, 120 Spencer Street, Melbourne Vic 3000; P +61 3 9616 0640 | X 50640.
If you have any queries, please email me and I will get back to you within one business day or so. For an individual discussion, please ring me during business hours (or leave a message if I am not in) and I will return your call as soon as possible.
1 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 society. This assessment task is to assess your ability to research to gain an understanding of the current developments in distributed systems. Further details are available in the Assignment 1 Specification document available on the Unit website.
Week 4 Friday (29 Mar 2024) 11:45 pm AEST
Week 6 Friday (19 Apr 2024)
- Clear demonstration of your understanding of the importance of distributed system principles of security, reliability, etc. as per the requirement
- Demonstration of a good understanding of the topics related to current developments in Distributed Systems as given in the specification
- Demonstration of a deep understanding of the theoretical concepts learnt about fault tolerance
- A critical review of relevant information and logical construction of arguments
- Relevant discussion of the impact of specific aspects of distributed systems on society
- Appropriate formatting, clarity of expressions, and relevant and correct use of references
- Evaluate techniques for creating secure, reliable, and efficient distributed systems by examining the technology needs and social impact arising from ubiquitous distributed systems
2 Practical Assessment
Your task for this assignment is to design, implement, test, and document a client/server system that 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 - 6. Further details are in the Assignment 2 Specification document available on the Unit website.
Week 7 Friday (26 Apr 2024) 11:45 pm AEST
Week 9 Friday (10 May 2024)
- 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 applications.
- Design and develop secure distributed applications in a distributed service-oriented architecture
- Implement software applications that enable concurrent access to distributed databases and transactions.
3 Reflective Practice Assignment
This is a group assessment, and your task for this assignment is to design, implement, test, and document a secure three-tier client/server system that allows concurrent access to multiple clients. Your system will have a 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- 12 and in the pre-requisite units. You will be completing the software design and development work in a team consisting of 3-4 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 3 Specification document available on the Unit website.
Review/Exam Week Friday (7 June 2024) 11:45 pm AEST
Marking sheet with comments will be returned to you after publication of grades.
- 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 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.
- Evaluate techniques for creating secure, reliable, and efficient distributed systems by examining the technology needs and social impact arising from ubiquitous distributed systems
- Design and develop secure distributed applications in a distributed service-oriented architecture
- Analyse the use of algorithms and mechanisms to execute coordinated concurrent processes in distributed systems
- Implement software applications that enable concurrent access to distributed databases and transactions.
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?
