BUGEMA UNIVERSITY

A CHARTERED SEVENTH-DAY INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING

MAIN/KAMPALA CAMPUS
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTING

COURSE OUTLINE

BNCT 312 PARALLEL AND DISTRIBUTED

SYSTEMS

2023/2024 ACADEMIC YEAR

JAN-MAY 2024

Lecturer’s Name & Qualification: Nantege Hellen M. and SSewankambo Erma

Contact Hours: Three (3) hours per week

Tutorial Hours: 1 hr per week

Timing and Location:

Mode of Delivery: Lectures, presentations, practical Implementation

Mode of assessment: Test, assignments and Examinations

Consultation Time: OPEN

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course will introduce students to parallel and distributed systems, focusing on both shared memory
parallel computers and distributed memory multicomputer or clusters. Students will also be introduced to
concepts of parallel programming using appropriate program languages (eg. C++ and Java). Topics to be
covered will include introduction to parallel and distributed systems, hardware architecture, software
architecture, concurrency enterprise systems and synchronization, data and work portioning, common
parallel strategies, shared memory and threads, multiprocesors, distributed memory and message passing,
system area networks, Network protocol impact, operating systems issues and virtualization.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

 To enable students acquire knowledge in parallel and distributed systems

 To train in key issues of sharing memory in large networks

 To train students the different architectures used in distributed systems and how it
supports message passing

LEARNING OUTCOMES.

at the end of this course students should be able to:

 Distinguish between parallel and distributed systems

 Explain the different software and hardware architectures used in distributed systems
clusters

 Explain the use of shared memory parallel computers and distributed memory
multicomputer

 Distinguish between cloud computing, grid computing and peer to peer networks

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND ASSESSMENT

 Attendance 5%

 Assignments 10%

 Tests 15%

 Presentations 20%

 Final Exam 50%

GRADING SCALE AND ASSESSMENT (See the Respective Academic Bulletin)

Students should be aware that the grading and assessments of any tests, assignments and exams
are standard and can not be compromised by either a lecturer or students. The bulletin gives the
final grade point average of the
COURSE OUTLINE / CONTENT (NB: Please indicate any Holidays, Main events or breaks)

Month Week/Date Topic/Activity Assignment Remarks

(Include Lectures & Tutorials)

January Wk 2 Registration

Wk 3 and 4 Introduction to parallel 6 hours

computing, distributed systems,
parallel architecture, performance
of parallel computers,
performance metrics for
processors, parallel programming
models

February Wk 1&2 Pipeline performance, arithmetic 6 hours

pipelines, pipeline instruction
processing, hazards, Multi-
threading synchronization issues
and solutions ,common
parallelization strategies, load
balancing

Wk 3&4 Shared memory and distributed 6 hours

memory, SIMD architecture and
programming principles, data
mapping, SIMD parallel processors
reviewed

March Wk 1&2 Goals of distributed systems, types assignment 6 hours

of distributed systems, distributed
system models, hardware
concepts, software concept,
models of middleware, client
server model

Wk 3&4 Cloud computing & virtualization Test 6 hours

April Wk 1&2 Data centric and client centric 6 hours

models, replica management

Wk 3 Features of distributed file 3hours

systems, file models, file accessing
models, file replication, network
file system (NFS), Andrew file
system (AFS)
 Wk 4 Final exams

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Coulouris, Jean Dollimoreand Tim KindbergDistributed Systems: Concepts and Design, Third
Edition Published by Addison –Wesley 2000
2. Software Architecture in Practice (2nd edition), Bass, Clements, and Kazman
3. Clemens Szyperski: Component Software: Beyond Object-Oriented Programming, Addison
Wesley Publishing Company, 2002
4. Jon Siegel: An Overview Of CORBA 3.0, Object Management Group, 2002
5. Christine Hofmeister, Robert Nord, DilipSoni: Applied Software Architecture, Addison
Wesley -Object Technology Series, 1999
6. Paul Clements, Felix Bachmann, Len Bass, David Garlan, James Ivers, Reed Little, Robert
Nord, Judith Stafford: Documenting Software Architectures -Views and Beyond, Addison-
Wesley, 2002
7. Frank Buschmann, RegineMeunier, Hans Rohnert, Peter Sommerlad, Michael Stal: Pattern-
OrientedSoftware Architecture, Volume 1: A System of Patterns, John Wiley & Sons., 1996