Computer Science 373 - Distributed Algorithms

A distributed system consists of a network of processors that communicate by exchanging messages. No processor has a global view of the network, so neighboring processors must communicate in order for the system to perform a given task. In this course, we will study the theory of distributed systems. We will consider fundamental algorithmic tasks---for example, finding spanning trees, maximal independent sets, and graph coloring---in several models of distributed computing. Our goal is to understand under what conditions these tasks can be performed efficiently, if at all. While this course is primarily theoretical, we will discuss applications of the theory to modern computing paradigms (e.g., MapReduce).

Requisite: COSC 311. Limited to 30 students. Spring semester. Professor Rosenbaum.