Modern computer systems contain parallelism in both hardware and software. This unit covers parallelism in both general purpose and application specific computer architectures and the programming paradigms that allow parallelism to be exploited in software. This unit examines both shared memory and message passing paradigms in both hardware and software; concurrency, multithreading and synchronicity; parallel, clustered and distributed supercomputing models and languages. Students will program in these paradigms.
2 hrs lectures/wk
Workload commitments per week are:
CSE4333
Recommended knowledge: operating systems, including synchronisation and interprocess communication mechanisms; advanced computer architecture, including pipelining techniques.
Carlo Kopp (wk 1-2)
Asad Khan (wk 3-12)
Consultation hours: Thu 1-3pm, Room 221 Building 63, Clayton
In-semester assessment: 100%
| Assessment Task | Value | Due Date |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment 1 - Distributed Systems | 25% | Week 5, Monday 20 August 2012, 12pm |
| Assignment 2 - Distributed Systems | 25% | Week 9, Monday 17 September 2012, 12pm |
| Assignment 3 - Parallel Architectures | 25% | Week 14, Monday 29 October 2012, 12pm |
| Class Test - Parallel Architectures | 25% | Week 12 lecture |
Monash is committed to excellence in education and regularly seeks feedback from students, employers and staff. One of the key formal ways students have to provide feedback is through SETU, Student Evaluation of Teacher and Unit. The University's student evaluation policy requires that every unit is evaluated each year. Students are strongly encouraged to complete the surveys. The feedback is anonymous and provides the Faculty with evidence of aspects that students are satisfied and areas for improvement.
For more information on Monash's educational strategy, and on student evaluations, see:
http://www.monash.edu.au/about/monash-directions/directions.html
http://www.policy.monash.edu/policy-bank/academic/education/quality/student-evaluation-policy.html
Based on previous feedback the number of assignments has been reduced from four to three.
Online MonQuest Evaluations and Online Unit Evaluations will continue to be requested, and encouraged, to be done by as many students as possible as usual in Semester 2, 2012.
If you wish to view how previous students rated this unit, please go to
https://emuapps.monash.edu.au/unitevaluations/index.jsp
Please check with your lecturer before purchasing any Required Resources. Limited copies of prescribed texts are available for you to borrow in the library, and prescribed software is available in student labs.
VMPlayer (Freeware) or VMWare Workstation (VMWare Fusion for Mac users) software. This is available in University computer labs, but access to a personal computer with this software installed is highly recommended.
| Week | Activities | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Unit Introduction on web (no lecture) | No formal assessment or activities are undertaken in week 0 |
| 1 | Distributed systems | |
| 2 | Interprocess communication and remote procedure call | |
| 3 | Message Passage Library (MPI) | |
| 4 | Synchronisation, MUTEX, Deadlocks | |
| 5 | Election Algorithms, Distributed Transactions, Concurrency Control | Assignment 1 due Monday 20 August 2012, 12pm |
| 6 | (1) Faults, Distributed Consensus, and Security (2) Parallel Computing | |
| 7 | Instruction Level Parallelism | |
| 8 | Vector Architecture | |
| 9 | (1) Data Parallel Architectures (2) SIMD Architectures | Assignment 2 due Monday 17 September 2012, 12pm |
| 10 | (1) Introduction to MIMD (2) Distributed Memory MIMD Architectures | |
| 11 | Super Scaler Processing | |
| 12 | Parallel Architectures Class Test (during the lecture) | Class Test in lecture Week 12 |
| SWOT VAC | No formal assessment is undertaken in SWOT VAC; Assignment 3 due Week 14, Monday 29 October 2012, 12pm | |
| Examination period | LINK to Assessment Policy: http://policy.monash.edu.au/policy-bank/ academic/education/assessment/ assessment-in-coursework-policy.html |
*Unit Schedule details will be maintained and communicated to you via your MUSO (Blackboard or Moodle) learning system.
Faculty Policy - Unit Assessment Hurdles (http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/resources/staff/edgov/policies/assessment-examinations/unit-assessment-hurdles.html)
Academic Integrity - Please see the Demystifying Citing and Referencing tutorial at http://lib.monash.edu/tutorials/citing/
Individual assessment. Marks will be allocated, roughly equally, against the application areas listed in the assignment specification. Further marks will be allocated for the length of the paper (against the word limit) and the number and quality of references.
Individual assessment. This work will be assessed on a mix of programming tasks and theoretical write-up. Approximately 90% of the total marks for this assessment will be allocated to the programming related tasks and the remaining 10% for the theoretical write-up.
Individual assessment. Marks will be allocated, roughly equally, against the application areas listed in the assignment specification. Further marks will be allocated for the length of the paper (against the word limit) and the number and quality of references.
Individual assessment. Correct answers to questions.
It is a University requirement (http://www.policy.monash.edu/policy-bank/academic/education/conduct/plagiarism-procedures.html) for students to submit an assignment coversheet for each assessment item. Faculty Assignment coversheets can be found at http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/resources/student/forms/. Please check with your Lecturer on the submission method for your assignment coversheet (e.g. attach a file to the online assignment submission, hand-in a hard copy, or use an online quiz).
Submission must be made by the due date otherwise penalties will be enforced.
You must negotiate any extensions formally with your campus unit leader via the in-semester special consideration process: http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/resources/student/equity/special-consideration.html.
Resubmission of assignments will not be allowed.
Formatting and referencing information will provided on the unit website.
Monash has educational policies, procedures and guidelines, which are designed to ensure that staff and students are aware of the University's academic standards, and to provide advice on how they might uphold them.
You can find Monash's Education Policies at:
http://policy.monash.edu.au/policy-bank/academic/education/index.html
Key educational policies include:
The University provides many different kinds of support services for you. Contact your tutor if you need advice and see the range of services available at www.monash.edu.au/students. For Sunway see http://www.monash.edu.my/Student-services, and for South Africa see http://www.monash.ac.za/current/
The Monash University Library provides a range of services and resources that enable you to save time and be more effective in your learning and research. Go to http://www.lib.monash.edu.au or the library tab in my.monash portal for more information. At Sunway, visit the Library and Learning Commons at http://www.lib.monash.edu.my/. At South Africa visit http://www.lib.monash.ac.za/.
Academic support services may be available for students who have a disability or medical condition. Registration with the Disability Liaison Unit is required. Further information is available as follows:
Students can supplement their knowledge of the unit through the following:
G.R. Andrews: Foundations of Multithreaded, Parallel and Distributed Programming, Addison-Wesley, 2000.
J. Magee and J. Kramer: Concurrency: State models & Java Programming; John-Wiley & Sons, 2006.
I.T. Foster: Designing and Building Parallel Programs, Addison-Wesley, 1995.
M. Maekawa, A.E. Oldehoeft, R.R. Oldehoeft: Operating Systems Advanced Concepts, Benjamin/Cummings, 1987.
Advanced Computer Architectures: A Design Space Approach, Sima, Fountain and Kacsuk , Addison Wesley Publishers
Reading material including research papers, programming manuals and system specifications, will be distributed electronically as part of the background reading material for each week.