Unit Synopsis
Modern computer systems commonly rely on distributed and cloud computing systems, which enable seamless access to networked resources such as processors, data stores, sensor networks, cyber-physical systems, and multimedia services. In this unit, you will gain foundation knowledge, and an understanding of the system models and their enabling technologies. You will learn the core concepts of distributed computing, such as interprocess communication, concurrency and synchronisation, transactions and concurrency control as well as distributed databases and files. This unit also exposes you to distributed system characteristics of scalability, heterogeneity, security, and failure handling. The areas of mobile and ubiquitous computing and the social impact arising from the ubiquity of distributed systems will also be explored. You will learn to develop secure and reliable distributed computing applications and web services that can perform concurrent operations across multiple computers.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Prerequisites: COIT12200 and COIT11237. Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 1 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Written Assessment | 20% |
| 2. Practical Assessment | 35% |
| 3. Reflective Practice Assignment | 45% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 1 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 20.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 16.67% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: In-class student feedback
Students are keen to learn new technologies in distributed systems, such as edge computing and advanced security.
Consider the introduction of Edge computing technology as part of the planned major update of this unit for 2025.
Security concepts were introduced as part of the major update; however, Edge computing technology was not included.
Source: Unit Coordinator self reflection
More content on security is needed in this unit.
Consider adding more security-related topics such as mutual authentication, and symmetrical/asymmetrical cryptography as part of the planned major update of this unit for 2025.
Symmetrical and asymmetrical security concepts were introduced as part of the major update.
Source: Student Evaluations and Unit Coordinator Reflections
The volume of content was excessive and the code in the slides is difficult to understand.
Some advanced topics may be removed: causal consistency may no longer be covered, and sequential consistency can be taught conceptually rather than at the code level.
In Progress
Source: Student Evaluations
The assessment specifications were unclear.
The final project may be broken down into stages and additional scaffolding provided to help students work through the project's intended ambiguity and conflicting requirements.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Evaluate techniques for creating secure, reliable, and efficient distributed systems by examining the technology needs and social impact arising from ubiquitous distributed systems
- Design and develop secure distributed applications in a distributed service-oriented architecture
- Analyse the use of algorithms and mechanisms to execute coordinated concurrent processes in distributed systems
- Implement software applications that enable concurrent access to distributed databases and transactions.
Australian Computer Society (ACS) recognises the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). SFIA is a widely used and consistent definition of ICT skills. SFIA is increasingly being used when developing job descriptions and role profiles. ACS members can use the tool MySFIA to build a skills profile at https://www.acs.org.au/professionalrecognition/mysfia-b2c.html
This unit contributes to the following workplace skills as defined by SFIA 8. The SFIA code is included:
- Solution architecture (ARCH)
- Software Design (SWDN)
- Systems integration and build (SINT)
- Programming/Software Development (PROG),
- Database Design (DBDS)
- User Experience Evaluation (USEV)
- Testing (TEST)
- System Installation and Removal (HSIN)
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | |||
| 2 - Practical Assessment | • | • | ||
| 3 - Reflective Practice Assignment | • | • | • | • |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | ||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | ||
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | |||
| 5 - Team Work | • | • | ||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | • | • | |
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | • | |||
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | ||
| 9 - Social Innovation | • | • | ||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |