Syllabus: COP 5611 Operating Systems

General Information

Objectives

The objective of this course is for you to understand the challenges and solutions in the design and implementation of distributed operating systems, multiprocessor operating systems and database operating systems. In particular, in this course, you are expected to acquire and demonstrate the ability to:

Prerequisites

Text

Other References

Lecture notes for the previous offering of this course is available in Dr. Baker's webpage. I will also suggest that you read the original articles describing some of the distributed algorithms covered in the text to get more detail and to appreciate the style of academic research papers in this area.

Homework, Exams, and Grading

The course grade will be based on the following work:

Grading of programming assignments will be primarily based on functionality and correctness. A program with bugs (even minor ones) that the developer does not notice will get AT MOST 70% of the perfect score. Late assignments will be accepted with 25 points penalty per day.

Final letter grade will be assigned based on relative performance. A student ranked in top 10% in the class will guarantee an A. A student ranked median (50%) in the class will most likely get a B+.

Since some of the system calls you will be making and the network traffic you will be generating can cause denial of service to other users of the system, you should only use program and linprog for the programming assignments. Failure to observe this restriction may result in loss of computer privileges.

Beware:
The successful completion of these assignments is a time consuming and demanding task! In particular, concurent programming is extremely difficult for inexperience programmers. Take into account two observations that come out of software engineering research:

Therefore, you should get started very early on your assignments. Do not rely on your estimates of how much time it will take you to complete, or assume that the time it takes you will be similar to the time it takes another student in the class.

Academic Honor Code

You are required to read the FSU Academic Honor Code and abide by it. It is unacceptable for a graduate student to violate the academic honor code. First violation will result in lowering of the final course grade by one whole letter IF the person admits the violation before the case is sent to the university academic honor court. A judgement of violating the academic honor code of any kind by the university academic honor count results in a grade of F with no provision for retaking the course.

By turning in work for a grade in this course you are representing it as being entirely your own individual work. Unless otherwise specified in writing, all programming projects are individual projects. If any assignment permits teamwork, it will be explicitly stated so in the assignment, and then the work is required to be only the work of the people on the team.

What does ``individual work'' mean? An intelligent person searches publications (including the web) for information, ideas, and code. If you use information or ideas obtained from the work of another person you must at least give credit via comments in your code stating what you have used, where you obtained it, and who is the person to whom credit is due. (Beware: If an idea is patented the above is not enough; you should not use it at all without a license.) If you use any code written by another person you must first obtain permission from the author or copyright owner, then mark the beginning and end of the quoted code using appropriate comments, and include a comment giving where you found the code and the the name of the author or copyright holder. Failure to follow these rules will be considered a violation of the Academic Honor Code.

Accommodation for Disabilities

Students with disabilities needing academic accommodations should:

  1. Register with and provide documentation to the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC).
  2. Bring a letter to the instructor from the SDRC `indicating you need academic accomodations. This should be done within the first week of class.

This syllabus and other class materials are available in alternative format upon request.

For more information about services available to FSU students with disabilities, contact the Assistant Dean of Students:

Student Disability Resource Center
08 Kellum Hall
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4066

e-mail: sdrc@admin.fsu.edu
phone: (850) 644-9566.


This syllabus is a modified version of the syllabus for Spring 2001 COP5611 course.