CS2510 Midterm Study Guide      Spring 2002

DATE   Tuesday, Mar 19, 2002

FORMAT

• Answer questions with short answers, definitions, solve problems by applying algorithms, think and make inferences based on material seen in class or in the textbook.
• Closed notes, closed book

PREPARATION

• Study lecture notes
• Study handouts and review your own notes taken in class
• Study textbook, sections 2.3-2.4, 3.1-3.3, 4.3, 4.5 (but no formalisms), 6.3
  

SUBJECTS

• Principles of distributed computing, scalability, transparency, etc.
• Client-server schemes, RPC schemes, communication schemes
• Migration of processes, distribution of servers and clients, naming and location of servers and clients
• Logical clocks, clock synchronization and distributed mutual exclusion schemes
• Global states, consistent and inconsistent
• Strong consistency
  

KNOW WHAT THE FOLLOWING MEAN, WHY THEY ARE USEFUL OR IMPORTANT, and UNDERSTAND THE TRADEOFFS

• Centralized vs. distributed algorithms
• Distributed vs. networked systems
• Caching of data, results, services (location, amount, etc)
• Different types of service location (different approaches for name services)
• Different types of consistency models
  

ABLE TO USE OR DO OR RECOGNIZE THE FOLLOWING

• Different caching algorithms
• Different distributed mutual exclusion algorithms