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Unit Synopsis
Many computer applications and services in use today are distributed systems: they have software running on multiple computers, communicating with each other across a network to achieve a common goal. In this unit you will examine the benefits and challenges of distributed systems versus centralised systems, and you will learn architectural design, inter-process communication and networking. You will explore the significant distributed system characteristics of scalability, heterogeneity, security and failure handling. You will implement these algorithms and techniques through laboratory activities and development of secure, reliable, client/server software applications that can perform concurrent operations across multiple computers in the Internet.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Pre-requisite: COIT11134 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). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2020
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Term 1 - 2025 Profile
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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.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Written Assessment | 25% |
| 2. Written Assessment | 35% |
| 3. Examination | 40% |
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%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site.
No previous feedback available
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.
Source: In-class student feedback
Students are keen to learn new technologies in distributed systems, such as edge computing and advanced security.
Consider the introduction of Edge computing technology as part of the planned major update of this unit for 2025.
Security concepts were introduced as part of the major update; however, Edge computing technology was not included.
Source: Unit Coordinator self reflection
More content on security is needed in this unit.
Consider adding more security-related topics such as mutual authentication, and symmetrical/asymmetrical cryptography as part of the planned major update of this unit for 2025.
Symmetrical and asymmetrical security concepts were introduced as part of the major update.
Source: Student Evaluations and Unit Coordinator Reflections
The volume of content was excessive and the code in the slides is difficult to understand.
Some advanced topics may be removed: causal consistency may no longer be covered, and sequential consistency can be taught conceptually rather than at the code level.
In Progress
Source: Student Evaluations
The assessment specifications were unclear.
The final project may be broken down into stages and additional scaffolding provided to help students work through the project's intended ambiguity and conflicting requirements.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Compare the benefits and challenges of distributed systems versus centralised systems
- Design software components that can run in parallel and on multiple networked computers
- Apply various distributed system algorithms and techniques to create practical distributed applications
- Analyse the role of operating system services and file systems in creating distributed applications
- 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 in use in over 100 countries and provides 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. The SFIA code is included:
- Systems Design (DESN)
- Systems Integration (SINT)
- Program ming/Software Development ( PROG),
- Database/Repository Design (DBDS)
- Testing (TEST)
- Network support (NTAS)
- Release and Deployment (RELM)
- Application Support (ASUP)
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | ||
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | ||
| 3 - Examination | • | • | • | ||
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | • | • | • |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • | • | • |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • | • | • |
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | • | • | • | • |
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||
| 3 - Examination | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||