615-335 Distributed Systems

Students enrolled in the BSc, BASc or a combined BSc course (except for the BSc/BIS) will receive science credit for the completion of this subject.

2003: 615-240 Concepts in Software Development II or 433-254 Software Design

From 2004: 615-241 Software Development (Advanced) or a mark of at least H3 in either 615-240 Concepts in Software Development II or 433-254 Software Design.

615-237 Telecommunications Concepts or 433-353 Networks and Communications.

Modern information systems design places a premium on separation of the logical applications and information architectures from the implementation detail.

In this subject, we will look at the associated design principles through theory and examples. We will see how adherence to these in a heterogeneous environment facilitates open e-commerce.

Aspects of the following topics will be considered:

• distributed systems (typical examples, database and application design, reliability, resilience and security);

• client server architectures from 3- to n-tier;

• distributed systems development environments;

• open and closed e-commerce systems;

• distributed object-based systems, such as Enterprise Java Beans and CORBA; and

• development in web-based environments through technologies such as WML/WAP and XML/HTTP.

At the completion of this subject, students should:

• have a firm understanding of the significant issues involved in the design, implementation, and management of distributed systems;

• be able to build small client-server and object-based systems using an application development framework;

• understand the role, frameworks and basic functionality of emerging distributed systems technologies such as WML, XML and SOAP (the Simple Object Access Protocol) and be able to build small prototype systems using these; and

• understand how these technologies form the basis for web services and underpin e-commerce systems integration.

Students will also acquire and extend other valuable, generic skills in both individual and group-based problem solving and analysis in practical application of theory.

A 2-hour end-of-semester written examination (60%) and a written assignment and group project work (40%) expected to average eight hours per week. The weighting of the individual non-examination assessment components will be announced at the commencement of the subject.