COS 598e: Course Summary

The goals of this class are the following.

• Learn about file systems. We will discuss a spectrum of cases ranging from classic literatures that are influential in the history of file system development to contemporary designs that are representative of the state-of-art research.
• Gain a better understanding of building distributed systems in general as the principles involved in building a high performance, scalable, and reliable distributed file system are applicable in a larger context.
• Explore the interaction with the rest of the operating system. File systems are not only the most visible part of operating systems, they also interface with many other components. We will examine the impact of the file system demands on the rest of the operating system.
• Enlist student help in new I/O research and steering future topics of research.

Tentatively, the topics we will discuss include disk modeling and technology trends, local file systems, file system interfaces to disk, RAID, communications, client/server file systems, file system measurements, prefetching, caching, cluster file systems, and miscellaneous topics that may include some of these topics: parallel file systems, disconnected operations, global connectivity, database systems, extensibility, multimedia systems, and non-disk based file systems.

The prerequisite of the course is undergraduate operating systems. The class format mainly consists of lectures and project presentations. Students are expected to submit brief half page observations of assigned readings, attend and participate in class discussions, and present their class projects. The grades are based on: 10% class participation, 30% paper observations, and 60% project.

If you are interested in more details, please watch this space for continued updates or email me your questions.