Course Outline

1. Introduction to Distributed Computing

   1. Characteristics of Distributed Systems

   2. Design Issues

   3. User Requirements

2. Architectures and Interaction Mechanisms

   1. Client Server Architecture

   2. Peer to Peer Computing

   3. Grid Computing

3. Remote Procedure Calling (RPC)

   1. RPC Mechanisms

   2. Generic Architectures of RPC Systems

   3. Design Issues and Goals

   4. SunRPC and its Application using Linux

4. Distributed Object Technology (DOT)

   1. Introduction to core issues in DOT

   2. Example Implementations

      1. Java RMI (Remote Method Invocation)

      2. CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture)

      3. .NET Framework

5. Java RMI

   1. Java Serialization

   2. Java RMI Architecture

   3. Building RMI Application

6. CORBA using Java as a Programming Language

   1. Building CORBA Application

   2. Dynamic Invocation using CORBA

7. Microsoft .NET Framework

   1. Introduction to .NET Framework

   2. Basic .NET Programming with C#

8. Knowledge Representation Issues

   1. Syntax Issues: Managing Heterogeneity

   2. Semantic Issues: Creating, Transferring and Understanding Knowledge in a Distributed

   3. Environment.

   4. Examples:

      1. Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ASN.1)

      2. External Data Representation (XDR)

      3. Extensible Markup Language (XML)

      4. Formatted Text: A Simple Alternative for Thin Clients

9. XML and SOAP

   1. Basic XML Principles

   2. Well Formed XML Documents

   3. Valid XML Documents

   4. Document Type Definitions

   5. Simple API for XML (SAX)

   6. XML RPC

10. Service Description, Advertisement and Discovery

    1. Naming, Locating, Advertising, Registering and Discovering Services

11. Load Balancing

    1. Replication

    2. Caching

    3. Task Allocation

12. Transaction Management

13. Fault Tolerance and Recovery Mechanisms

14. Agent Theory