COMP 620: Graduate Seminar in Distributed Computing

Instructor

Prof. T. S. Eugene Ng
Office: Duncan Hall 3005
Email: eugeneng at cs.rice.edu

Current TA

Scott Crosby
Office: Duncan Hall 30??
Email: animesh at cs.rice.edu

Former TA

Animesh Nandi
Office: Duncan Hall 3011
Email: animesh at cs.rice.edu

Meeting Time and Place

DH 3076, Friday 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm.

Description

We will focus on influential papers from different areas in Computer Systems : Operating Systems, Networking, File and Storage Systems, Architecture. For each such area we will start with some classical papers followed by the cutting-edge recent papers in that area. The seminar will also be conducted using the ever popular team debate format pioneered by Prof. Knightly.
We are currently compiling a list of papers from which the students shall volunteer to choose a particular paper to offend/defend. However students are encouraged to send their preferences for any paper which they would like to see discussed and the paper shall be included if it suits the expectations of the seminar. We are currently looking at papers from major conferences like SOSP/OSDI/NSDI/SIGCOMM/INFOCOM/MOBICOM/FAST/ASPLOS etc.

Tentative List of Papers

We are currently compiling the list of papers. Below is a tentative list to begin with. Everyone is encouraged to send references to interesting papers that they would like to see presented. The final list of papers will be shortlisted from that pool.

Networking

1. Congestion Control for High Bandwidth-Delay Product Networks ( SIGCOMM 2002)
2. Routing in a Delay Tolerant Network (SIGCOMM 2004)
3. High Speed Policy Based Packet Forwarding using Efficient Multidimensional Range Matching (SIGCOMM 98)
4. Range-Free Localization Schemes for Large Scale Sensor (MOBICOM 2003)
5. Routing in Multi-Radio Multi-Hop Wireless Mesh Networks ( MOBICOM 2004)

Operating Systems

1. Exokernel: an operating system architecture for application-level resource management ( SOSP 95)
2. Xen and the Art of Virtualization ( SOSP 2003)
3. Unmodified Device Driver Reuse and Improved System Dependability via Virtual Machines (OSDI 2004)
4. Contract Based Load Management in Federated Distributed systems ( NSDI 2004)
5. Increasing Web Server Throughput with Network Interface Data Caching ( ASPLOS 2002)
6. Using Magpie for Request Extraction and Workload Modelling ( OSDI 2004)

File and Storage Technologies

1. Journaling vs Soft Updates : Asynchronous Meta-data Protection in File Systems ( USENIX 2000)
2. Track Aligned Extents : Matching Access Patterns to Disk Driver Characteristics - ( FAST 2002 )
3. DSPTF: Decentralized Request Distribution in Brickbased Storage Systems ( ASPLOS 2004)
4. Improving Storage System Availability with D-GRAID ( FAST 2004)
5. Using MEMS Based Storage in Disk Arrays ( FAST 2003)

Seminar Schedule

Class	Date	Room	Paper title	Primary paper for debate (review needed)	Related paper (review optional)	Other (no review needed)	Defense	Offense
1	1/21	DH 3076	Congestion Control for High Bandwidth-Delay Product Networks (SIGCOMM 2002)	[KHR02] Reviews	[JWL04]		Santa/Shu Presentation	Amit/Animesh Presentation
2	1/28	DH 3076	Routing in a Delay Tolerant Network (SIGCOMM 2004)	[JFP04] Reviews	[F03]		Johnny Presentation	Yanjun Presentation
3	2/04	DH 3076	High Speed Policy-Based Packet Forwarding using Efficient Multi-Dimensional Range Matching (SIGCOMM98)	[LS98] Reviews			Anwis Presentation	Scott Presentation
4	2/11	DH 3076	Range-Free Localization Schemes for Large Scale Sensor Networks ( MOBICOM 2003)	[HHBSA03] Reviews			Andreas Presentation	Ansley Presentation
5	2/18	DH 3076	Combs, Needles, Haystacks : Balancing Push and Pull for Discovery in Large-Scale Sensor Networks (Sensys 2004)	[LHZ04] Reviews	[GHT03], [DIM03]		Santa Presentation	Dan Presentation
	3/04 & 3/11		Meet new grads & enjoy your Spring break
6	3/18	DH 3076	Recovering Device Drivers (OSDI 2004)	[SABL04] Reviews			Scott Presentation	Atul Presentation
7	3/25	DH 3076	Program-Counter Based Pattern Classification in Buffer Caching	PAPER Reviews???			Seth Presentation	Ajay Presentation
8	4/1	DH 3076	Middleboxes No longer considered harmful	PAPER			Seth Presentation	Yanjun Presentation
	4/8		Enjoy the break
9	4/15	DH 3076	Automatic Misconfiguration Troubleshooting with PeerPressure [OSDI 2004]	PAPER			Dan Presentation	Anwis Presentation
10	4/22	DH 3076	Track Aligned Extents : Matching Access Patterns to Disk Driver Characteristics - ( FAST 2002 )	PAPER			Amit Presentation	Johnny Presentation
11	4/29	DH 3076	Improving Storage System Availability with D-GRAID ( FAST 2004)	PAPER			???? Presentation	???? Presentation

Debate Format (Adopted from Prof. Ed Knightly)

A paper or a set of related papers will be assigned one week in advance. Two teams of students will be chosen to debate and lead the discussion. One team will be designated the offense and the other the defense. In class, the defense team will present first. For 30 minutes the team will discuss the work as if it were their own.

The team should present the work and make a compelling case why the contribution is significant. This will include the context of the contribution, prior work, and in cases where papers are previously published, how the work has influenced the research community or industry's directions (impact). If the paper is very recent, the defense should present arguments for the potential impact. Coming up with potential future work can show how the paper opens doors to new research.
The presentation should go well beyond a paper "summary". The defense should not critique the work other than to try to pre-empt attacks from the offense (e.g., by explicitly limiting the scope of the contribution).
The defense should also try to look up related work to support their case (CiteSeer is a good place to start looking).

After the defense presentation, the offense team will state their case for 20 minutes.

This team should critique the work, and make a case for missing links, unaddressed issues, lack of impact, inappropriateness of the problem formulation, etc.
The more insightful and less obvious the criticisms the better.
While the offense should prepare remarks in advance, they should also react to the points made by the defense.
The offense should also try to look up related work to support their case (CiteSeer is a good place to start looking).

Next, the defense and offense will be allowed follow up arguments, and finally, the class will question either side either for clarifications or to add to the discussions and controversy and make their own points on either side. At the end, the class will informally vote for the winner of the debate.

The presentations should be written in Powerpoint format (for better or worse) and will be posted on the seminar web page after each class.

Writing and Submitting Reviews

All students participating in the seminar should read the assigned papers and write short succint reviews for the papers.

Please do not send reviews as email attachments. Please send one review per email in the body of the email message. In your email, please use the following format for the subject line to enable some automation:

comp620review:[AuthorYear]

For example, for the first paper, you should use the subject line: comp620review:[KHR02]. Email the reviews to Animesh (animesh@cs.rice.edu) prior to each seminar and the reviews will be posted on the seminar web page for everyone to read.