15-712 Advanced Operating Systems and Distributed Systems, Spring 2023

Announcements

1/17: Announcements will be via Piazza

15-712 Piazza

Overview

15-712 is a PhD course in operating and distributed systems. The learning objectives are:

• To understand the state of the art in operating systems and distributed systems, and how and why we got there.
• To understand how to engage in systems research.
• To investigate novel ideas in systems through a semester-long research project.

Please note: This course is open to SCS and ECE Ph.D. students. Other students may be admitted by the permission of the instructor; please attend the first few sessions to see if you're interested. There will be a hard limit for the total number of students to ensure good in-class discussion and sufficient "face-time" for project meetings.

This course assumes a basic familiarity with operating sytems concepts. The course will consist of a reading/lecture/discussion component and a project component. The class will cover approximately 40 research papers. Some of these papers will introduce students to the basic principles on which modern operating systems and distributed systems are based. Others will cover more recent work to explore the state of the art and observe the evolution of these systems over time.

Students are expected to read papers before the class and participate in the discussion during the class.

• Lecture time: MWF 12:30 - 1:50
  Note: Class will meet on average two times per week. See the syllabus for the exact schedule.
  
• Units: 12
• Location: GHC 4303

We will be using Piazza for class announcements and out-of-class questions. Rather than emailing questions to Phil and/or Val, please post your questions on Piazza at 15-712 Piazza.

Although most of the course information is on these web pages, the course is also on Canvas. In particular, assignments will be turned in using Canvas.

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Course Staff

Instructor

Name	Email	Office	Office Hours
Phil Gibbons	gibbons AT cs DOT cmu DOT edu	GHC 7221	Fri 2-3 pm

Teaching Assistant

Name	Email	Office	Office Hours
Val Choung	vchoung AT andrew DOT cmu DOT edu	GHC 6023	Mon 11-noon

Course Admin

Name	Email
Amanda Hornick	ahornick AT andrew DOT cmu DOT edu

Course Policies

Collaboration

Students are encouraged to talk to each other, to the course staff, or to anyone else about any of the assignments. Assistance must be limited to discussion of the problem and sketching general approaches to a solution. Each student must write out his or her own solutions to the homework.

Late Policy

• The deadline for any assignment can be extended with a 10% penalty per day.
• No deadline can be extended by more than two days. Assignments will NOT be accepted 48 hours after the due date.
• The project presentations must be given on the day they are scheduled
• If you are ill: Contact the instructor and get a medical note.