CS4513 Final Exam Topic Outline

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

• File Systems (RG10)

  • FUSE - Hello World
  • Programming for FUSE
  • Benchmarking
    • Microbenchmarks
    • Macrobenchmarks

• Overview of Distributed Systems

  • Scalability
    • Hiding latency
    • Distribution
    • Replication
  • Distributed operating system
  • Network operating system
  • Client-server
    • Multi-tiered architecture
    • Three-tiered architecture

• Network Games

  • Aspects of Networking (SKH02)
    • Introduction
      • Growth in networking and games
      • Virtual reality and related research areas
    • Critical networking resources
      • Bandwidth (bitrate), latency, processing power
    • Distribution concepts
      • Communication architectures
      • Data and control: Responsiveness and consistency
      • Compensatory techniques: Message aggregation, Interest management, Dead reckoning
    • Scalability
    • Cheating: packet tampering, information exposure, design defects
  • Games in the Cloud (CCL14, Cla09, CFGS14)
    • Games as a service
      • Motivation
      • Game modules for the cloud
      • Local rendering, remote rendering
    • Games as video
      • Game stream versus application stream
      • Motion and scene complexity
    • Game video performance
      • OnLive overview
      • Measurement experiments
      • Downstream bitrates
      • TCP-friendliness
      • Predicting player performance
      • Comparison of streaming turbulence
  • Latency and Games (CC10)
    • Network latency: responsiveness, consistency, fairness
    • Precision and deadline
    • Player performance versus latency
      • Methodology
      • Precision
      • Deadline
    • Dealing with latency

• The Web (TS02, KR10, SAAF08)

  • The document model
  • XML basics
  • Architecture
  • Processes
  • Caching
  • Web 2.0
    • Asynchronous processing (and AJAX)
    • Measuring Web 2.0 traffic
    • Web 2.0 vs. Web 1.0 basics

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