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.
Minimum total expected workload equals 12 hours per week comprising:
(a.) Contact hours for on-campus students:
(b.) Additional requirements (all students):
Students will be expected to spend about 12 hours per week during semester on this unit as follows:
While it is strongly recommended you attend lectures and lab/tutorials, lecture and other supplementary teaching material will be made available on-line and Dr. Khan can be contacted by e-mail or phone for assistance. The assignments and tutorial lab exercises can all be done at home if you have suitable facilities, but by attending lab/tutorials on campus you may get assistance from your tutor/lecturer and learn through discussion with fellow students. Lectures will be recorded but sometimes the recording technology doesn't work properly and not everything presented in lectures (such as things on overhead projectors or whiteboards) will appear on recordings.
CSE4333
Recommended knowledge: operating systems, including synchronisation and interprocess communication mechanisms; advanced computer architecture, including pipelining techniques.
Dr Asad Khan
Consultation hours: By arrangement via e-mail.
To be announced
Consultation hours: To be announced
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 the Student Evaluation of Teaching and Units (SETU) survey. 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, see:
www.monash.edu.au/about/monash-directions/ and on student evaluations, see: 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 three to two, and supervised and assessed lab/tutorial sessions have been included to allow more personal guidance of students and more focused practical experience of parallel/distributed programming.
If you wish to view how previous students rated this unit, please go to
https://emuapps.monash.edu.au/unitevaluations/index.jsp
| Week | Activities | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Unit Introduction on web (no lecture). Register for lab sessions | No formal assessment or activities are undertaken in week 0 |
| 1 | Distributed systems | |
| 2 | Interprocess communication and remote procedure call | Weekly group submissions Week 2 to Week 10 (both Weeks inclusive) |
| 3 | Message Passage Library (MPI) | |
| 4 | Synchronisation, MUTEX, Deadlocks | |
| 5 | Election Algorithms, Distributed Transactions, Concurrency Control | Assignment 1 due Monday 25 August 2014, 12PM |
| 6 | 1) Faults, Distributed Consensus, and Security (2) Parallel Computing | |
| 7 | Parallel Computing Alternatives | |
| 8 | Instruction Level Parallelism | |
| 9 | Vector Architecture | |
| 10 | (1) Data Parallel Architectures (2) SIMD Architectures | |
| 11 | (1) Introduction to MIMD (2) Distributed Memory MIMD Architectures | Assignment 2 code demonstrations during Week 11 labs (attendance is essential) |
| 12 | Class Test during lecture | Assignment 2 code demonstrations during Week 12 labs (attendance is essential). Class test during Week 12 lecture |
| SWOT VAC | No formal assessment is undertaken in SWOT VAC. Assignment 2 due Week 14, Friday 7 November 2014, 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 learning system.
In-semester assessment: 100%
| Assessment Task | Value | Due Date |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment 1 - Distributed Systems | 25% | Week 5, Monday 25 August 2014, 12PM |
| Assignment 2 - Parallel Computing | 25% (6% for code demonstration) | Code demonstrations during Week 11 or 12 labs. Assignment due Week 14, Friday 7 November 2014, 12PM |
| Class Test - Parallel Architectures | 25% | During the Week 12 lecture |
| The assessed laboratory/tutorial work | 25% | Weekly group submissions Week 2 to Week 10 (both Weeks inclusive) |
Faculty Policy - Unit Assessment Hurdles (http://intranet.monash.edu.au/infotech/resources/staff/edgov/policies/assessment-examinations/assessment-hurdles.html)
Academic Integrity - Please see resources and tutorials at http://www.monash.edu/library/skills/resources/tutorials/academic-integrity/
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.
Individual assessment. Correct answers to questions.
The laboratory work is group-based and it is assessed on correctness and on the quality of the solutions and on the quality of presentation/documentation. Individual marks for each group member will be derived from (i) the peer assessements made by the group under the supervision of the tutor and (ii) the overall marks achieved by the group.
The following are some books that may be of interest. There is no single text book covering the content of FIT5174 at a suitable level. Sufficient material will be provided on the unit web site to cater for FIT5174 students. If students have interests in specific areas of parallel or distributed computing they should contact the lecturer for advice on suitable references.
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.
Further resources will be made available via the unit web site.
Monash Library Unit Reading List (if applicable to the unit)
http://readinglists.lib.monash.edu/index.html
Faculty of Information Technology Style Guide
Examination/other end-of-semester assessment feedback may take the form of feedback classes, provision of sample answers or other group feedback after official results have been published. Please check with your lecturer on the feedback provided and take advantage of this prior to requesting individual consultations with staff. If your unit has an examination, you may request to view your examination script booklet, see http://intranet.monash.edu.au/infotech/resources/students/procedures/request-to-view-exam-scripts.html
Types of feedback you can expect to receive in this unit are:
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.monash.edu.au/exams/special-consideration.html
Resubmission of assignments after the due date will not be allowed, however assignments handed-in early for feedback may be resubmitted by the due date.
Formatting and referencing information will provided on the unit website.
It is a University requirement (http://www.policy.monash.edu/policy-bank/academic/education/conduct/student-academic-integrity-managing-plagiarism-collusion-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). Please note that it is your responsibility to retain copies of your assessments.
If Electronic Submission has been approved for your unit, please submit your work via the learning system for this unit, which you can access via links in the my.monash portal.
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.
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: www.policy.monash.edu.au/policy-bank/academic/education/index.html
Key educational policies include:
Important student resources including Faculty policies are located at http://intranet.monash.edu.au/infotech/resources/students/
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 http://www.monash.edu.au/students. For Malaysia 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, resources and programs that enable you to save time and be more effective in your learning and research. Go to www.lib.monash.edu.au or the library tab in my.monash portal for more information. At Malaysia, visit the Library and Learning Commons at http://www.lib.monash.edu.my/. At South Africa visit http://www.lib.monash.ac.za/.
Reading material including research papers, programming manuals and system specifications, will be distributed electronically as part of the background reading material for FIT5174.
Feel free to e-mail the lecturer, Dr. Asad Khan, with any queries. Please include "FIT5174" in the subject line to ensure prompt responses. Dr. Khan's e-mail address is:
Asad.Khan@monash.edu