CS 396-4: Course Synopsis

Course Synopsis

CS 396-4 provides an intensive focus on conceptual and practical aspects of designing, implementing, and debugging complex concurrent and distributed software systems using QoS-enabled component middleware. Key topics covered in this course include:

Developing, documenting, and testing applications using object-oriented frameworks associated with component middleware.
Reuse of patterns and software architectures
Developing distributed systems using OO languages (C++), OO frameworks (ACE), and CORBA (TAO and CIAO).

Design and implementation based on patterns and frameworks are central themes to enable the construction of reusable, extensible, efficient, and maintainable distributed system software. In addition, abstraction based on patterns and OO techniques (such as separation of interface from implementation) will be the central concepts and principles throughout the course. These concepts and principles will enable you to construct reusable, extensible, efficient, and maintainable distributed system software.

Patterns will be taught so that you will have good role models for structuring their own designs, as well as to clearly articulate the tradeoffs of alternative methods for designing systems. OO techniques will be taught so that you will learn by example how to build highly decentralized distributed system software architectures that decouple inter-dependencies between components.

We will construct distributed system components and applications using popular programming tools available on modern operating systems, such as make, emacs, CVS, C++, CORBA, ACE, TAO, and CIAO. You are expected to be familiar with C++ and UNIX or Windows.

Course Contents

The following is a more detailed overview of the course contents. Lecture material for each section are available as online handouts.

Background material
- Overview of operating systems, protocols, and middleware
- Overview of key C++ language features
- Overview of key concurrency and networking principles, concepts, and tools
Introduction to Frameworks and Components
- Overview
- Comparison of frameworks, components, class libraries, and subroutine libraries
- Implementing and documenting frameworks and components with patterns
- Framework usage rules
- Developing frameworks and components for communication systems
Introduction to Component Middleware and Service Oriented Architectures
- Distributable components
- Interface Definition Languages
- Object References
- Object Request Brokers (ORBs)
- Object Adapters
- Objects and Servants
- Interoperability Protocols
- Communication Service architectures
- Metrics for measuring performance and predictibility
Patterns
- Overview and motivation
- Tactical patterns
  1. Bridge
  2. Iterator
  3. Adaptor
  4. Strategy
  5. Template Method
  6. Factory Method
  7. State
  8. Singleton
  9. Facade
- Strategic patterns for distributed systems
  1. Reactor
  2. Reactor
  3. Proactor
  4. Acceptor and Connector
  5. Active Object
  6. Half-Sync/Half-Async
  7. Service Configurator
  8. Double-checked Locking Optimization
  9. Publisher/Subscriber
  10. Broker
  11. Layered Architecture
  12. Pipes and Filters Architecture
Case Studies Developing Systems using Reuseable Patterns, Frameworks, and Middleware
The following case studies will be used in class to illustrate the component middleware design and programming process:
- Rate-based real-time avionics application
- Client/server interactive game
- Distributed real-time and embedded middleware

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