Distributed application design [ LINGI2346 ]

• Programming in a high-level language (C and Java) (e.g. LFSAB1401 and LSINF1252)
  
• Basic knowledge of networks (protocols, ...) (e.g. LINGI2141 or LELEC2920)

• Main classical programming models for distributed applications.
• Introduction to the theoretical background of distributed applications.

Students completing successfully this course will be able to

• design distributed applications ( i.e. programs consisting of several components cooperating through a computer network which can be hostile, and that run on computers that can be of different types);
• implement distributed applications;
• use application programming interfaces (API) usefull to build such applications
• design application protocols that will implement the specific functionalities on top of these APIs

Students will have developed skills and operational methodology. In particular, they have developed their ability to

• write a good quality user's guide for an application developped by the student himself;
• write a technical description of an application which enables any system administrator to install it correctly;
• write a technical paper describing the application so that another programmer will be able to understand and contribute to its development

• Written exam (open books) (50% of the final grade)
• Reports of these assignments (50% of the final grade)

• The course is structured in 7 missions of 2 weeks each. Missions 2 to 6 include a small project (assignment) to be completed in groups of two students.
• Students discover individually by themselves the learning material of each mission in the beginning of the corresponding two week period. They identify the points they find hard to understand or those they would like to know more about.  These points are discussed in a meeting with the professor.
• Assignments

• Introduction to distributed applications
  
• Low level programming model (socket interface)
• Client/server model (RPC, RMI interfaces) including security aspects and middlewares
• Symetrical model (PVM interface)
• Theoretical bases of concurrency and parallelism in information access

Material available on the foditic website

Further reading

• W. Richard Stevens, UNIX Network programming, Volume 1 Networking APIs, ISBN 0-13-490012-X
• Esmond Pitt, Katthleen McNiff, java.RMI, The Remote Method Invocation Guide, ISBN 0-201-70043-3
• Geist,..., Parallel Virtual Machine, ISBN 0-262-57108-0