Here is a suggestion to the content of your class presentation and discussion:

- Executive summary: problem addressed, solution proposed, results. Reading this it should be clear what problem is being solved (and not how it is, or how good the solution is, or your opinion of it).

- Description: how serious is the problem? this may not be needed for generic problems. But for some cases, it may not be obvious.  Have others solved this problem, tried to, and how far they got?. Solution approach (the main idea).

-Results: focus on quantification if possible to describe the results achieved. Are there any important conclusions that can be drawn  based directly from the results? What is the significance of the results, implications?

-Your critique/Conclusion: In some cases, it may mean comparing results with some other work/approaches for a similar problem, identifying commonality, differences. Is this paper supporting or contradicting a known result? Does it speak to conventional wisdom in the domain?

34330 Execution Environments for Distributed Computing (EEDC), Spring 2009
Master in Computer Architecture, Networks and Systems (CANS)
Computer Architectura Department (AC), Technical University of Catalonia (UPC)
ECTS credits: 6

OFFICIAL COURSE DESCRIPTION : Guia docente” (Spanish)

OBJETIVOS:

El objetivo del curso es ofrecer una visión de los desarrollos y la investigación en los entornos de ejecución para sistemas paralelos y distribuidos. En el curso se hará especial énfasis en los entornos requeridos en las nuevas aplicaciones ebusiness y grid. Se estudiará la organización interna y la gestión que recursos requerida para garantizar funcionalidades y calidad de servicio.

CONTENIDOS: Distributed object technologies and protocols, Internal organization of middleware, Grid middleware, Middleware for eBusiness applications, Middleware Performance and Analysis, New Middleware Challenges: Autonomic Computing

METODOLOGÍA: Esta asignatura es avanzada y los conceptos básicos se suponen ya conocidos en asignaturas anteriores y está enfocada principalmente a introducir al estudiante en los conceptos más avanzados.

Con clases magistrales se introduciran los temas que se trabajarán sobre artículos recientes publicados en congresos o revistas especializadas y propuestas de proyectos en desarrollo. Los alumnos deberán realizar la lectura y discusión de estos artículos.
Los alumos realizaran un trabajo personal y presentaran un tema de investigación relacionado con la asignatura. El estudiante tendrá que desarrollar su capacidad crítica para evaluar la adecuación de las soluciones presentadas o, en su caso, proponer posibles ideas.

De las 150 horas de trabajo, la distribución será:

· 60 horas (4 horas semana, 15 semanas) de clase presencial. Estas 60 horas se distribuirán en clase magistrales, trabajos, casos de estudio y debate de artículos de investigación y presentación de trabajos
· 90 horas de trabajo no presencial: lectura de artículos de investigación, realización de trabajos, preparación de las presentaciones y estudio.

EVALUACIÓN:

La evaluación se basará en

(a) la participación en las discusiones,
(b) entrega de los trabajos propuestos y
(c) en un trabajo final individual o por grupos

INSTRUCTOR

Jordi Torres
Phone: +34 93 401 7223
Email : torres@ac.upc.edu
Office : Campus Nord, Modul C6. Room 217.
Lecture and meeting times: Wednesday and Thursday from 5pm to 7pm.
Classroom: to be announced
Office hours: By appointment.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Nowadays, business and scientific organisations have a large amount of critical workflow processes that depend upon a set of heterogeneous applications. This set of applications can range from transactional applications, with databases, to non interactive applications such as those that perform scientific CPU-intensive computing, document indexing or intensive I/O. To efficiently execute all these kinds of applications, a new execution environment (or middleware) is needed to manage the available resources and simplify the development and integration of the different types of applications and services. These middleware components are crucial to new systems and architectures because of their direct impact on the quality of the service offered by the application.

This course provides an overview of the wide scope of this area and introduces past and current research focusing on conceptual and practical aspects of  Distributed object technologies and protocols, Internal organization of middleware, Grid middleware, Middleware for eBusiness applications, Middleware Performance and Analysis,  and the new Middleware Challenges as Autonomic Computing.

The course also has the objective of introducing the student to research. In general the EEDC course is focused on developing skills rather than content. For this reason each year we focus the course on some of the dichotomies which come to mind when looking at the strategies available to deal with concrete problems in the wider EEDC space and in relation to some problem of the utmost relevance. This year’s special focus is on the green computing.

Based on the previous concepts there will be paper readings assigned for some of the classes. This is an important part of the course and it is required that each student read these before coming to class. We will have two main reading parts in the course, one for general papers and one for more in depth research in the area (related with the research project). Discussions will be led by one or more students and may include a brief presentation of the paper.

All students taking the course are required to complete a research project (or “state-of-the-field” review). The project is intended to provide the student with an opportunity to gain experience with research in a topic related to the content of the course. Moreover we will introduce the student to the research information resources.

Finally we will learn how a research conference is organized. The students will be involved in the organization committees of the Third Workshop on Execution Environments for Distributed Computing (EEDC 2009). All the research projects will be presented at this conference after a standard review process. Finally all the projects will be published as a book chapter in a book published by UPC.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

On completion of this course you will be able to:

• Students will have a solid understanding of the concepts used in the course. This understanding will provide them with the foundation necessary to be able to pursue further learning on their own.
• Students will be an expert in this important area of computer science that support current internet world.
• Students will have an understanding of the impact of computers in society.
• Students will gain experience to orally communicate ideas and concepts clearly and in an organized manner.
• Students will gain experience to write research reports and books.
• This course will help students to be prepared to enter the scientific computation community in academia or in industry.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Soon more information

MODULE 1- MIDDLEWARE BASICS

MODULE 2- TODAY SCENARIO: CLOUD COMPUTING

MODULE 3- TOPICAL FOCUS: GREEN COMPUTING

GRADING POLICY:

Paper Readings/Presentations: 35%

• Basic papers: 15%
• Research papers: 20%

Research Project: 35%

• Research survey content and writing 25%
• Presentation of the workshop paper 10%

Participation: 30%

• Conference organization and book edition participation 10%
• Class Participation in paper discussions 10%
• Homework 10%

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:

To be announced

COURSE MATERIAL:

To be announced

COMMENTS:

Basic papers: Reading/Presentation/Class discussion

It is required that each student read the papers assigned in class. You will also have to submit (by midnight the deadline day) a report/presentation about the readings with the main contributions of the papers. Additionally each paper will be presented at the class (with ppt or equivalent) by one group and discussed by the students (the choice will be random). Some suggestions to the content of your class presentation and discussionideas for the presentation of the basic papers will be explained in class.

List of papers: To be announced

Key dates: To be announced

How to read a paper?

S.Keshav. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review 83 Volume 37, Number 3, July 2007. http://www.sigcomm.org/ccr/drupal/files/p83-keshavA.pdf

Research Paper: Reading/Presentation/Class discussion:

Soon more information.

List of papers: To Be announced . Some suggestions to the content of your class presentation and discussionideas for the presentation could be found here.

Key dates: To Be announced

EEDC’09 Workshop:

Third Workshop on Execution Environments for Distributed Computing (EEDC 2009), june 2009.

Soon more information.

Book:

Soon more information.

Previous edition EEDC’08:

“CLOUD COMPUTING: Execution Environments for Distributed Computation Issues”. J. Torres, I. Goiri and M. Macias Editors. Lulu.com publisher, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-4092-1787-9. http://www.lulu.com/content/3077784

FURTHER INFORMATION:

The instructor will send you messages to Raco FIB to inform you of any news or changes as the course progresses and post the information concerning our classes, extra teaching material, internet resources, etc.

Technical University of Catalonia:

Jordi Torres
UPC, Campus Nord, Modul C6 - 217
C/ Jordi Girona, 1-3. E-08034 Barcelona (Spain)

Phone: (+34) 93 401 7223
email: torres (at) ac.upc.edu

Barcelona Supercomputing Center:

Jordi Torres
BSC-CNS. Nexus II Building
c/ Jordi Girona, 29
08034 Barcelona (Spain)

Phone: (+34) 93 413 7716
Fax: (+34) 93 413 77 21
email: jordi.torres (at) bsc.es

Spype: Jordi.Torres

Facebook: http://es-es.facebook.com/people/Jordi-Torres/538908279

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jorditorresvinyals

.Tel: JordiTorres.tel

Google Maps: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=41.39+++2.113&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

How to reach my office: My office is in Campus Nord of UPC:

UPC Campus Nord, Modul C6-217
Jordi Girona 1-3
E-08034 Barcelona ( taxi map)

This is located at the Northwest end of Barcelona, not far from Diagonal avenue.

By Plane:

Barcelona airport is at 12 Km from the city. More information about Barcelona’s airport: www.aena.es. You can arrive with a taxi. In front of every terminal you will find a taxi stand. If they are available, they will show a green light with the text LIBRE or LLIURE (it means “available”). The approximate travel price to UPC campus Nord is around 35 €. Show this google map to the taxi driver to reach the UPC campus.

If you rent a car from the airport, please leave “El Prat del Llobregat” and take C-32B. Continue along this route and head towards Ronda de Dalt / Lleida / Girona. Close to Barcelona, take route C-32 passing close to Cornellà del Llobregat and L’Hospitalet. Take B-20 and take Exit 10 called “Carretera d’Esplugues”. Take the street called “carrer del Gran Capità” and turn left towards Sor Eulàlia d’Anzizu street (See this google map).

From downtown:

The most convenient access is by metro:

• Get on Line 3 (green color), direction Zona Universitària. Exit at the last-but-one stop, Palau Reial. This takes 20-25 minutes from the center (e.g., Plaça Catalunya stop).
• At the platform, it doesn’t matter whether you take the front or back exit. But after you pass the ticket counters, make sure you walk to the farthest exit, then left.
• Make a right on the corner of the Palau Reial palace, walk uphill along its plain-looking wall, cross the street. Walk over to the c6 building . Total walking time is 8-10 minutes.
• My office is 217 in floor 2.
• The Zona Universitària metro stop is almost as close. If you like buses better, final stops of lines 7, 33, and 54 are also nearby.
• Hopefully the map above makes it clear.

Also you could take a taxi. Show this google map location to the taxi driver to reach the UPC campus.

My phone again, just in case: (+34) 93 401 7223.

General:

Please visit my post Welcome to Barcelona.

34330 Execution Environments for Distributed Computing (EEDC)

Spring 2008

Master in Computer Architecture, Networks and Systems (CANS)

Computer Architectura Department (AC)

Technical University of Catalonia (UPC)

ECTS credits: 6

OFFICIAL COURSE DESCRIPTION :

“Guia docente” (Spanish) : http://docencia.ac.upc.edu/master//es/course.24.html

OBJETIVOS:

El objetivo del curso es ofrecer una visión de los desarrollos y la investigación en los entornos de ejecución para sistemas paralelos y distribuidos. En el curso se hará especial énfasis en los entornos requeridos en las nuevas aplicaciones ebusiness y grid. Se estudiará la organización interna y la gestión que recursos requerida para garantizar funcionalidades y calidad de servicio.

CONTENIDOS: Distributed object technologies and protocols
Internal organization of middleware
Grid middleware
Middleware for eBusiness applications
Middleware Performance and Analysis
New Middleware Challenges: Autonomic Computing

METODOLOGÍA: Esta asignatura es avanzada y los conceptos básicos se suponen ya conocidos en asignaturas anteriores y está enfocada principalmente a introducir al estudiante en los conceptos más avanzados.

Con clases magistrales se introduciran los temas que se trabajarán sobre artículos recientes publicados en congresos o revistas especializadas y propuestas de proyectos en desarrollo. Los alumnos deberán realizar la lectura y discusión de estos artículos.
Los alumos realizaran un trabajo personal y presentaran un tema de investigación relacionado con la asignatura. El estudiante tendrá que desarrollar su capacidad crítica para evaluar la adecuación de las soluciones presentadas o, en su caso, proponer posibles ideas.

De las 150 horas de trabajo, la distribución será:

· 60 horas (4 horas semana, 15 semanas) de clase presencial. Estas 60 horas se distribuirán en clase magistrales, trabajos, casos de estudio y debate de artículos de investigación y presentación de trabajos

· 90 horas de trabajo no presencial: lectura de artículos de investigación, realización de trabajos, preparación de las presentaciones y estudio.

EVALUACIÓN:

La evaluación se basará en

(a) la participación en las discusiones,

(b) entrega de los trabajos propuestos y

(c) en un trabajo final individual o por grupos

RECURSOS:

Artículos presentados en congresos y revistas. Campus virtual o blog
Documentos de los organismos de estandarización y manuales.

INSTRUCTOR

Jordi Torres

Phone: +34 93 401 7223

Email : torres@ac.upc.edu

Office : Campus Nord, Modul C6. Room 217.

Lecture and meeting times: Monday and Friday, 3:00pm to 5:00pm.

Classroom: A6203

Office hours: By appointment.

COURSE CONTENT:

Nowadays, business and scientific organisations have a large amount of critical workflow processes that depend upon a set of heterogeneous applications. This set of applications can range from transactional applications, with databases, to non interactive applications such as those that perform scientific CPU-intensive computing, document indexing or intensive I/O. To efficiently execute all these kinds of applications, a new execution environment (or middleware) is needed to manage the available resources and simplify the development and integration of the different types of applications and services. These middleware components are crucial to new systems and architectures because of their direct impact on the quality of the service offered by the application.

This course provides a glimpse at the wide scope of this area and introduces past and current research in the area focusing on conceptual and practical aspects.

The course also has the objective of introducing the student to research. Throughout the course we will consider how to write a scientific paper and the process for getting it published.

The course will start with a brief revision of the basic concepts required to take this course. Section entitled “0. Introduction and Overview of Middleware”, emphasizes the motivation behind the research in this area. The section entitled, “1. Distributed object technologies and protocols”, will review some of the basic concepts about the core technologies: Internet protocols, web servers, technologies that make up Web Services, … . In “2. Internal organization of middleware”, we introduce the layered view of the middleware and review the main components and current models. Some of the research challenges in this topic are related to the complexity involved in tuning the components of a middleware. In this section we will pay special attention to a new research focus which was started recently with the rebirth of virtualization technology. The next section, “3. Grid middleware”, makes references to CPU intensive applications. Their typical execution platforms are hosted on supercomputing facilities that are composed of high performance machines (supercomputers). The research in middleware technologies for these kinds of environments covers areas such as job scheduling, resource management and the dynamic management of application parallelism. Transactional application management is also a challenging task and will be considered in section “4. Middleware for eBusiness applications”. The management of this execution environment is a difficult task that covers areas such as distributed resource management, quality of service issues, resource utilization, application isolation and security. The middleware layer is crucial because it can have an immediate impact on the quality of service the customer receives. In section “5. Middleware Performance and Analysis” we will have a look at the performance of middleware components. The middleware’s requirements have risen quickly as well as its complexity. To be able to manage these complex middleware systems it’s necessary to make use of self-managing techniques, also known as autonomic computing. In section “6. New Middleware challenges: Autonomic Computing “, we will introduce the recent advances in this new research area.

During the course we will discuss the amazing new wave of Internet applications and the new requirements for middleware as a result of these types of applications.

Besides the general view given with this brief revision of the basic concepts, we will study in more detail some important issues in the format of a case study.

Based on the previous concepts there will be paper readings assigned for some of the classes. This is an important part of the course and it is required that each student read these before coming to class. We will have two main reading parts in the course, one for general papers and one for more in depth research in the area. Each paper is discussed in class. Discussions will be led by one or more students and may include a brief presentation of the paper.

All students taking the course are required to complete a research project (or “state-of-the-field” review) and submit a paper describing the results of this project. The project is intended to provide the student with an opportunity to gain experience with research in a topic related to the content of the course. Moreover we will introduce the student to the research information resources.

Finally we will learn how a research conference is organized. The students will be involved in the organization committees of the Second Workshop on Execution Environments for Distributed Computing (EEDC 2008). All the research projects will be presented (and published) at this conference after a standard review process.

TENTATIVE COURSE ORGANIZATION :

GRADING POLICY:

· Research Readings/Presentations: 35%

· Basic papers: 15%

· Research papers: 20%

· Research Project: 35%

· Paper content and writing 25%

· Presentation of the paper 10%

· Participation: 30%

· Conference organization participation 10%

· Class Participation in paper discussions 20%

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:

To be announced next class

Basic papers: Reading/Presentation/Class discussion

We will study a set of papers to obtain a first background in this topic. We will start with an article that reviews the research advances in middleware for distributed systems [1]. Furthermore, an introduction to web servers [2] is required to establish a base line of knowledge between all the students. In [3] we outline what’s different between grid computing and P2P, CORBA and cluster computing. In paper [4] we will analyze the different performance parameters that can influence in the performance of the Grid/eBusiness middleware. We glance at current trends with article [5], where the author examines a current commercial platform as an integrated grid platform for SOA and infrastructure virtualization environments.

It is required that each student read these 5 papers. You will also have to submit (by midnight the deadline day) a report/presentation about the readings with the main contributions of the papers. Additionally each paper will be presented at the class (with ppt or equivalent) by one group and discussed by the students (the choice will be random).

Key dates: To be announced

How to read a paper?

S.Keshav. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review 83 Volume 37, Number 3, July 2007

http://www.sigcomm.org/ccr/drupal/files/p83-keshavA.pdf

Research Paper: Reading/Presentation/Class discussion:

Key dates: To Be announced

List of papers: To Be announced

EEDC’08 Workshop

Second International Workshop on Execution Environments for Distributed Computing (EEDC 2008), june 2008.

Soon more information.

Previous edition: EEDC’07

Call For Papers:

http://autonomic.ac.upc.edu/JordiTorres/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/cfp_eedc_new.pdf

Proceedings: First Workshop on Execution Environments for Distributed Computing. 68 pages. Lulu Ed. 2007. ISBN: 978-1-84799-878-1 http://books.google.com/books?id=jes6CecbM1EC

Case study:

Soon more information.

Writing an article:

Soon more information.