1. Andy Wang COP 5611 Advanced Operating Systems
Course Information
Andy Wang
COP 5611
Advanced Operating Systems

2. Contact Information
Andy Wang
Office: 269 Love Building
Office hours:
MF 4-5pm, after class, also by appointments
Class website:

3. Objectives Learn classic and current OS literature
Gain experience in doing OS research
Develop projects that lead to publishable results

4. Prerequisites COP 4610 (operating systems)
CDA 3101 (computer organizations)
Knowledge of the UNIX environment
Proficiency in C

5. Course Materials Lecture notes and papers No required textbooks
Posted on the class website
No required textbooks

6. Recommended Textbooks
Tanenbaum and Van Steen, Distributed Systems Principles and Paradigms
Singhal and Shivaratri, Advanced Concepts in Operating Systems

7. Background Textbooks Tanenbaum, Modern Operating Systems
Silberschatz, Galvin, Gagne, Operating System Concepts
Nutt, Operating Systems: A Modern Perspective

8. Kernel-Hacking Aids Nutt, Kernel Projects for Linux
Kernighan, Ritchie, The C Programming Language
Maxwell, Linux Core Kernel Commentary
Corbet, Rubini, and Kroah-Hartman, Linux Device Drivers

9. Grading Paper summaries and critiques 5% Project 40%
Peer evaluation of projects 5%
Exam %
Exam %
Final %

10. Individual Critiques
Ten one-page single-spaced critiques on recent papers (< 1 yr), from the following venues, or from other venues with prior approval:
Conferences: SOSP, OSDI, EuroSys, HotOS, HotStorage, HotCloud, Usenix FAST, Usenix ATC, Sigmetrics, ASPLOS, Usenix Security, StorageSS, MobiCom, MobiSys, SoCC, SC, NSDI

11. Side Note: Research Cycle
Have an idea
2 months later
Submit a grant proposal to NSF
6 months later
Funded
3 months later
Prototype built
Submit to WIP
6 months later
Evaluation done
WIP published
3 months later
Submit to a conference
Paper published

12. Critiques One due each week
Both in class and through turnitin.com (via blackboard), for the first 10 weeks
Please include your name, homework number, submission date, paper title, publication venue

13. Critiques Need to contain the following sections Summary
Problems/existing & new approaches/results
Intriguing aspects of the paper
Observations/trends/assumptions/techniques
How can the research be improved?
Techniques/experiments/handling of corner cases and assumptions

14. Project You need to develop a project in teams of two or three
It should take about at least 100 to 120 hours
Goal:
Publishable results

15. Types of Papers Survey papers Position papers Simulation papers
Measurement papers
System papers

16. Some Example Projects
Feasibility of using sound cues for debugging operating systems
Feasibility study of applying economic models for distributed resource management
Feasibility study of life-long storage of sensory inputs

17. Weekly Project Reports
Per person
Demonstrate steady progress
Papers read
Obstacles encountered
New ideas
Software pieces built
Experiments

18. Project Proposal Due on the 5th week Group presentation
All team members are required to participate
2-page written proposal
Motivation
The state-of-the-art
Methodology
Expected results
Show stoppers
Plan B
Timeline

19. Project Proposal Include: 5-10 references
Division of labor amongst teams

20. Project Presentation During the last two weeks of the course
12 to 15-page (max) written paper due by the last lecture (double column, single-space, 10-pt font)
Critiques on two other projects, not including yours

21. Exams In-class and closed-book, unless specified otherwise
Essays and short answers
Open research questions

22. Entrance Exam Make sure that you have the necessary background
Too late to drop the class after exam 1
You need to pay extra to make up the dropped credit hours

23. Overall Expectations Not like an undergraduate course
Need to take your own initiative
Lots of time spent on reading, writing, and working on your project
Need to limit your course load
Find out about taking research hours

24. A Few Words on Plagiarism
Please don’t plagiarize; that means
No cutting and pasting
No Wiki references
No paraphrasing, moving prepositional phrases around, replacing verbs, etc.
Dire consequences; potential loss of
Grade, assistantship, on-campus jobs, dormitory, student VISA

25. A Few Words on Plagiarism
Alternatives
Skip a HW (0.5% of the course grade)
Drop classes and side jobs
Ask for project extension due to an excused absence
Switch majors/schools

26. A Few Words on Plagiarism
My prosecution record: 100%
This is your only warning
Typically
Tempted to plagiarize after exam 1
I will be busier, but Turnitin won’t
Will see an ‘I’ grade at the end