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Distributed Systems

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CS 425 : ECE 428

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Fall 2026


 

 

Lectures Schedule (Tentative)

Note: Slides are marked as "Tentative" before the lecture. These slides are not authoritative until marked as "Final".

 

 

 

Lecture # Category Date  Lecture Name  Readings

Slides

HWs and MPs, Etc.

1 Welcome! 8/25 Introduction Relevant parts of Chapter 1

 

[ppt] [pdf] (Final)

MP1 out

2
Clouds 8/27 Introduction to Cloud Computing + start of Mapreduce/Hadoop

 

[ppt] [pdf] (Tentative)

HW1 out

3
  9/1 Mapreduce/Hadoop

 

[ppt] [pdf] (Tentative)


4
  9/3 Gossip Section 18.4 (Relevant Parts) [ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
5
Classical Distributed Algorithms 9/8 Failure Detectors and Membership, Grids Section 15.1 and relevant parts of Section 2.4.2
Further readings (log in via UIUC VPN to access Digital Library Papers at ACM, IEEE, etc.!):
[ppt][pdf] (Tentative)

Grid Lecture Video


6
  9/10 P2P Systems Paper - "Gnutella Protocol Specification"

 

[ppt][pdf] (Tentative)


7
  9/15 P2P Systems (II) [ppt][pdf] (Tentative) MP1 due 11.59 PM 9/13 (Sun), MP1 demos on 9/14 (Mon) MP2 out 9/15
8
  9/17 Key-value Stores/NoSQL [ppt][pdf] (Tentative)

HBase Lecture Video

9
  9/22 Key-value Stores/NoSQL (Contd.) See above

 

 

See previous lecture

HW1 due 9/20 11:59 PM (Sun), HW2 out 9/21
10
  9/24 Key-value Stores/NoSQL (Contd.) See above See above MP2 due 11.59 PM 9/27 (Sun), Demos on 9/28 (Mon)
11
  9/29 Consistency Models, start of Time and Ordering Chapter 12 (relevant parts).

Sections 14.1-14.4
See above, and See Below
12
Classical Distributed Algorithms 10/1 Time and Ordering (Contd.) Sections 14.1-14.4 [ppt][pdf] (Tentative) HW2 due 10/4 at 11:59 PM (Sun)
13
  10/6 Snapshots Section 14.5
[ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
14   10/8 IN-CLASS MIDTERM EXAM

Syllabus: For all students except MCS Coursera: All lecture material from Lectures 1-12, and all HWs1-2.

For MCS Coursera students: All material in C3 Part 1, including lectures, Coursera quizzes, HWs 1-2, Coursera MP1.

Locations (on campus):

  • if (your LAST NAME starts with A-M ) goto: xxxxx
  • else (LAST NAME starts with N-Z) goto: yyyy[Map])

MCS Coursera students will have a timed-exam (90 minutes + buffer). See pinned Piazza post for more instructions.

On-campus midterm is 75 min, closed-book, and closed-notes. Calculators allowed. NO cheatsheets and other devices allowed. Midterm will be held during class hours.
15 Classical Distributed Algorithms 10/13 Multicast Communications Section 15.4 [ppt][pdf] (Tentative) HW3 out on 10/12, MP3 out on 10/13
16
  10/15 Mutual Exclusion Section 15.2
[ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
17
  10/20 Consensus Paper-"Impossibility of Distributed Consensus" (sections 1-3 only), and Section 15.5.2.

This lecture's material is mandatory for all students (all sections of class). In spite of what the videos might say, the material is NOT optional.
[ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
18
  10/22 Leader Election Section 15.3 [ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
19   10/27 Paxos and Raft Section 17.3.1, 21.5.2 (Paxos sections) [ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
20
Concurrency and Replication 10/29 RPCs and Marshalling


Sections 4.3, Relevant parts of Chapter 5



[ppt][pdf] (Tentative) HW3 due 11/1 at 11:59 PM (Sun)
21   11/3 Concurrency Control, Transactions Section 16.{1, 2, 4},  17.{1, 2, 3, 5} [ppt][pdf] (Tentative) HW4 out

22

  11/5 Replication Control/2PC Sections 18.1-18.3, 18.5

Relevant parts of Section 17.{1, 2, 3, 5}
[ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
23
The New Age 11/10 Stream Processing and Scheduling [ppt][pdf] (Tentative)

Spark (In syllabus, everyone should see video (since not lectured in class). Not optional!) : [Spark-ppt] [Spark-pdf] [Spark Mediaspace Video Lecture (one video)]

MP3 due 11.59 PM 11/8 (Sunday), demos 11/9 (Mon). MP4 out 11/10.
24
Back to Basics 11/12 Remote and Distributed File Systems (NFS, AFS, GFS) Chapter 12 (relevant parts). [ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
25
  11/17 Distributed Shared Memory Sections 6.5 (relevant parts).

Optional: Chap 6 from Tanenbaum, Distributed Systems: principles and paradigms

[ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
26
The New Age 11/19 Graph Processing and Machine Learning (Both topics ARE in syllabus)

Graphs, ML (All topics including ML are in syllabus and not optional!) :

[ppt][pdf] (Tentative)


    11/24

 

 

FALL/THANKSGIVING BREAK - no class.

 

 

    11/26

 

 

FALL/THANKSGIVING BREAK - no class.


  

27   12/1 Security


[ppt][pdf] (Tentative)
28
Real Behaviors 12/3 Datacenter Disasters - Case Studies
See links on slides
[ppt][pdf] (Tentative) HW4 due 12/3 at 11.59 PM (DUE on a THURSDAY!)
29 Onward 12/8 Wrap-up   [ppt][pdf] (Tentative) MP4 due 12/6 at 11.59 PM (Sun), demos 12/7 (Mon)
    FINAL EXAM: TBD FINAL EXAM. Final exam for all students except MCS Coursera will be in-person and timed (3 hours).
Final exam for Coursera students will be online and timed (3 hours + buffer).
(No conflicts given for travel, holiday travel, interviews, course double booking. Conflict requests must be received 2 weeks before, and ack-ed by instructor. Medical reasons should come with medical certificate mentioning patient name.)

Syllabus: For all students except MCS Coursera: All lecture material from Lectures 1 through Lecture 29 (both inclusive), and all HWs1-4.

For Coursera students: All material in C3 Parts 1 and 2, including lectures, Coursera quizzes and exams, HWs 1-4, Coursera MP1, MP2.

Location (on campus): TBD.