CS 6378: Advanced Operating Systems

Fall 2005
Section 501
Tuesday, Thursday 5:30 pm – 6:45 pm
ECSS 2.412

Instructor: Neeraj Mittal

Office: ECSS 4.202
Phone: (972) 883 2347
E-mail: neerajm@utdallas.edu
URL: http://www.utdallas.edu/~neerajm/cs6378f05
Office Hours: Tuesday, Thursday 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm. Alternatively, a student can also schedule
an appointment by email.

Teaching Assistant: Sathya Peri

E-mail: sathya.p@student.utdallas.edu

Catalog Statement: concurrent processing, inter-process communication, process synchroniza-

tion, deadlocks, introduction to queuing theory and operational analysis, topics in distributed
systems and algorithms, checkpointing, recovery, multiprocessor operating systems

Prerequisites: CS 5348: Operating Systems or equivalent, working knowledge of C/C++/Java

and UNIX, and comfortable with socket and thread programming.

Textbook: The textbook for the course is Advanced Concepts in Operating Systems by Mukesh
Singhal and Niranjan G. Shivaratri. In addition, from time to time, students will be provided with
copies of some research papers cited in the book. They are meant to be read! Examinations and
quizzes may contain questions on the issues discussed in these papers.

Course Contents: This is a graduate level course on operating systems. As such, it will cover fun-
damental issues, concepts and mechanisms involved in designing and building advanced operating
systems, especially distributed operating systems. The following topics will be covered:

• Theoretical Foundations

• Distributed Mutual Exclusion

• Agreement Protocols

• Clock Synchronization

• Distributed Scheduling

• RAID Storage System

• Recovery and Fault Tolerance

• Security

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Based on time availability, Concurrency Control may also be discussed.

Grading Distribution: There will be one midterm examination on Tuesday, October 11

during class, one final examination on Thursday, December 1, four quizzes (only best three
will be considered), two homework assignments and two programming assignments. The dates for
the quizzes will be announced during the semester. Each quiz will be of approximately twenty
minutes duration and will be held at the beginning of the class. Examinations and quizzes will be
closed book and closed notes unless otherwise announced. Homework assignments have to be done
individually; no collaboration of any kind will be tolerated. The point distribution is as follows:
Midterm 25%
Final 25%
Quizzes 20%
Homework Assignments 10%
Programming Assignments 20%

Cheating on examinations, quizzes and assignments is prohibited and will be dealt with harshly.
Students suspected of cheating, copying or plagiarism are subject to disciplinary proceedings as per
university policies.

Late Assignment Policy: Late assignments carry a penalty of 10% per day (including weekends)
and cannot be submitted for credit after the graded assignments have been returned. The late
penalty may be waived under exceptional circumstances, provided the instructor is contacted before
the penalty is incurred.

Important Dates:

• Midterm examination: Tuesday October 11, 2005 at 5:30 pm

• Final examination: Thursday December 1, 2005 at 5:00 pm

Miscellaneous: From time to time, important announcements regarding the course including quiz
dates and assignment deadlines will be posted on the course webpage. Students are advised to check
it on a regular basis.