Distributed Systems (Fall 2009)


Instructor: Maarten van Steen
Room: R4.20
Email: steen@cs.vu.nl
Tel: 598 7784

If you wish to talk to me about the course, please make an appointment after class, by calling, or via email.

Information about the Computer Systems Group. 

Information about the top masters in Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems


Course Material

For the exams, you have to study

Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Maarten van Steen
Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms (second edition)
Prentice Hall, 2007

There is a set of slides available. They are also available as small booklets allowing you to make notes. Material may change up to a few days before class.

Instructors may want the original slides, or even perhaps the Latex sources. Please contact me.

What to study

In principle, everything that is specified under the class schedule needs to be studied. However, not everything is equally important. For this year, you can find a rough categorization here. Note: "++" indicates important, "o" indicates less important.

Exams

There is an extensive set of previous exams, most with answers to the questions. The results of exams can be found here (internally available only). The dates for exams can be found here.

Class schedule (Fall 2009)

Important note: This year's course is scheduled for November-December only. There are two classes each week (Wednesday and Friday), no midterm exam, with a final exam on December 15.

Schedule: The following schedule is tentative. There is a lot of material and not everything will be discussed. Note that the exam is scheduled in the week following the last class. That means that you defintely have to study the material as we go!

Class Day, date Time Room Chapter
01 Wed, 28 Oct 15:30-17:15 C121 1,2
  Fri, 30 Oct 09:00-10:45 C121 no class
02 Wed, 04 Nov 15:30-17:15 C121 2,3
03 Fri, 06 Nov 09:00-10:45 WN-C121 3,4
04 Wed, 11 Nov 15:30-17:15 WN-Q105 4
05 Fri, 13 Nov 09:00-10:45 HG-14A00 5
06 Wed, 18 Nov 15:30-17:15 WN-Q105 6
07 Fri, 20 Nov 09:00-10:45 HG-14A00 6,7
08 Wed, 25 Nov 15:30-17:15 WN-C147 7
09 Fri, 27 Nov 09:00-10:45 HG-14A00 8
10 Wed, 02 Dec 15:30-17:15 WN-Q105 8
11 Fri, 04 Dec 09:00-10:45 HG-14A00 10
12 Wed, 09 Dec 15:30-17:15 WN-C147 12,13
13 Fri, 11 Dec 09:00-10:45 HG-14A00 leftovers