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COIT20257 - Distributed Systems: Principles and Development

General Information

Unit Synopsis

You will learn the principles of distributed systems, including architecture, design, and algorithms, and how to use them in the development of distributed applications. You will explore the significant distributed system characteristics of scalability, heterogeneity, security, and failure handling in addition to the fundamentals of networking, inter-process communication, remote invocation, and operating system support. You will examine different approaches to supporting distributed applications including client/server models, web services, cloud computing, and edge computing solutions. You will learn about distributed file systems, naming, and data-related aspects of distributed transactions, and data replication. You will analyse algorithms associated with coordination and agreement. You will also critique the social impacts arising from the widespread adoption of distributed systems, including remote work, virtual communities, and privacy and security concerns. You will reinforce the core theoretical concepts by analysing a case study focused on a complex, component-based distributed system designed with robust security features.

Details

Level Postgraduate
Unit Level 9
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 2
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Prerequisite unit: COIT20256 Object Oriented Development

Anti-Requisite unit: COIT23005 Distributed Systems

 

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 - 2025

Term 1 - 2025 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Rockhampton
Sydney
Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Rockhampton
Sydney
Term 3 - 2025 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Sydney

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).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Postgraduate 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

This information will not be available until 8 weeks before term.
To see assessment details from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.

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%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 1 - 2024 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 83.33% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 24% 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: UC self reflection and teaching team feedback
Feedback
Students need a comprehensive and complex case study to synthesise the concepts, models and architecture that are covered by the unit.
Recommendation
Combine Transactions and Distributed Transactions to a single week. Then a week space can leave to introduce social computing networks by a comprehensive and complex distributed case study (e.g. secured chat systems).
Action Taken
The Week 9 and Week 10 contents have been combined/updated into Week 9. The original Week 11 and Week 12 have been moved to Week 10 and Week 11. A complex distributed system case study on Secured Online Chat has been implemented for Week 12 lecture, lab and tutorial.
Source: UC self reflection and teaching team feedback
Feedback
Lack or not enough depth in advanced Java programming.
Recommendation
Introduce or strengthen Java interfaces, object serialization and streaming, Java generics and multithreading to handle distributed interaction and modelling.
Action Taken
All of the technical issues have been implemented and distributed in relevant weeks' contents and assessed by assignments.
Source: UC self reflection and teaching team feedback
Feedback
Involving more students for unit evaluation.
Recommendation
1. In Week 1 and 6 Lectures: clearly explain to students why teaching evaluations are important to the improvement of the unit and helps instructors enhance their teaching methods. 2. In Week 10 Lecture and Tutorial: encourage class discussions about the importance of feedback and improvements. Lead discussions on the topic and involve students in brainstorming ways to enhance the unit.
Action Taken
The promotion for teaching evaluation has been done in Week 1, Week 6 and Week 10.
Source: Unit Coordinator self reflection
Feedback
There is a need to gather feedback from students and the teaching team on the newly added content regarding 1) security topics (mutual authentication and symmetrical/asymmetrical cryptography) and 2) the complex distributed system case study, to assess their reception and integration into the course and inform necessary refinements for improved learning outcomes.
Recommendation
Collect feedback from the teaching team and check students' performance on the newly added content on the two topics. If necessary, make proper adjustments/updates to the content.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Unit Coordinator self reflection
Feedback
The rise of IoT, demand for low-latency applications, and growth of 5G underscore the importance of incorporating edge computing into the curriculum to equip students with knowledge of efficient and scalable computing solutions.
Recommendation
Introduce the modern distributed computing model of Edge Computing, along with key industry standards. Assess Edge Computing through a simplified case study, such as Smart Farming.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes
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To see Learning Outcomes from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.