Parallel and Distributed Systems

What you’ll study

Parallel processing — parallel computer models, multiprocessors and multicomputers, multivector and SIMD computers, PRAM and VLSI models; program and network properties — the conditions of parallelism, program partitioning and scheduling, program-flow mechanisms and system-interconnect architecture; processors and memory hierarchy — advanced processor technology, superscalar and vector processors, and memory-hierarchy and virtual-memory technology. Distributed systems — the definition and evolution of distributed computing systems, distributed-computing models and the issues in designing a distributed operating system; synchronization — clock synchronization, event ordering, mutual exclusion, deadlock and election algorithms; remote procedure calls — the RPC model and its transparency and implementation; the distributed file system — file and directory services, the semantics of file sharing, caching and stateful/stateless file servers; and fault tolerance through redundancy, active replication and primary-backup.