CS4513 Final Exam Topic Outline

Here is an outline of the topics that might be on the final exam:

Distributed File Systems
- Basic Principles
- Network File System (NFS)
  - Architecture
  - Protocols
  - Caching
- Andrew File System (AFS)
  - Architecture
  - Protocols
  - Caching
- Dropbox
  - Goals
  - Architecture basics
Overview of Distributed Systems
- Scalability
  - Hiding latency
  - Distribution
  - Replication
- Distributed operating system
- Network operating system
- Client-server
  - Multi-tiered architecture
  - Three-tiered architecture
- The Cloud
  - Overview
  - Architecture
    - IaaS
    - PaaS
    - SaaS
    - HaaS
Network Games
- Synchronizing Game States
  - Simultaneous simulations
  - Need for synchronziation
  - Object serialization
  - Object-specific design
  - Age of Empires approach (BT01)
- Aspects of Networking (SKH02)
  - Distribution concepts
    - Communication architectures
    - Data and control: Responsiveness and consistency
    - Compensatory techniques: Interest management, Dead reckoning, Time Delay, Time Warp (Ber01)
  - Cheating: packet tampering, information exposure, design defects
- Games in the Cloud (CCL14, CFGS14)
  - Motivation
  - Game modules for the cloud
  - Games as video
Peer-to-peer Systems
- Overview
- P2P file sharing
  - Centralized (Napster)
  - Flooding (Gnutella)
  - Super-nodes (KaZaA)
  - Swarming (BitTorrent)

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