Computational Systems Seminar, Spring 2004

Department of Computer Sciences, University of Salzburg

Time, Location: Summer 2004, Techno-Z.

Brief Overview: What is the latest trend in operating system design? Is a virtual machine an efficient concept to multiplex hardware? How does a high-performance web server work? Is a multi-threading or an event-dispatching operating system or even a hybrid of the two the way to go? Why is real-time programming so difficult? Is synchronous reactive programming or traditional real-time scheduling the right model? If you are interested in these and other systems-related questions, sign up for the computational systems seminar. The seminar provides a unique opportunity to meet other students and discuss hot topics in systems research. Pick a research paper listed below (or propose some other recent paper), read and understand it, and then share your experience with the group.

Goals of the seminar: Learn how to read, understand, and present top research papers and their context.

Prerequisites: Background in basic programming language and operating system concepts.

Requirements: Each student selects a research paper, writes a 10-15 page survey of its research context, and gives a 45min presentation on the paper.

Restrictions: Seminar language is English.

Students and papers:

  • Emilia Coste: Schedule-Carrying Code, by Thomas A. Henzinger, Christoph M. Kirsch, Slobodan Matic. EMSOFT 2003, Volume 2855, LNCS, Springer, 2003. Presentation. Survey.
  • Claudiu Farcas: Capriccio: Scalable Threads for Internet Services, by J. Robert von Behren, Jeremy Condit, Feng Zhou, George C. Necula, Eric A. Brewer. SOSP 2003 : 268-281. Presentation. Survey.
  • Marcus Harringer: Xen and the Art of Virtualization, by Paul T. Barham, Boris Dragovic, Keir Fraser, Steven Hand, Timothy L. Harris, Alex Ho, Rolf Neugebauer. SOSP 2003 : 164-177. Presentation. Survey.
  • Michael Holzmann: The Emergence of Networking Abstractions and Techniques in TinyOS, by Philip Levis, Sam Madden, David Gay, Joe Polastre, Robert Szewczyk, Alec Woo, Eric Brewer, David Culler. NSDI 2004. Presentation. Survey.
  • Zenina Huskic: Flash: An efficient and portable web server, by Vivek S. Pai, Peter Druschel, Willy Zwaenepoel. USENIX 1999. Presentation. Survey.
  • Gregor Koenig: Model-Carrying Code: A Practical Approach for Safe Execution of Untrusted Applications, by R. Sekar, V.N. Venkatakrishnan, Samik Basu, Sandeep Bhatkar, Daniel C. DuVarney. SOSP 2003. Presentation. Survey.
  • Gerald Stieglbauer: Terra: A Virtual Machine-Based Platform for Trusted Computing, by T. Garfinkel, B. Pfaff, J. Chow, M. Rosenblum, D. Boneh. SOSP 2003. Presentation. Survey.

Organization: Christoph Kirsch