Code

COMPGC04

Year

MSc

Prerequisites

This course should be taken in conjunction with the core courses for this programme (ie GC01, GC02, GC03 and GC05)

Term

1

Taught By

John Dowell (50%)
Stephen Hailes (50%)

Aims

This course is an amalgam of three different aspects of systems design and construction - operating systems, compilers and databases - each having approximately equal weight. The course is a fundamental one in the programme as a whole, in the sense that it introduces material that is built on elsewhere and, consequently, much of the material will be aimed at providing a basic understanding of the role that different systems components play within real computer systems, and how they go about achieving this.

Learning Outcomes

Students should be able to describe and discuss the fundamentals of systems infrastructure outlined below and their interrelationships and interdependencies with other aspects drawn from the core MSc curriculum. They should be able to discriminate between different possible solutions to practical problems and, consequently, apply the knowledge gained in a practical way.

A historical perspective

A brief history of operating systems, compilers and databases; milestones in their development and changes driven by changes in both use and in the underlying hardware

Process creation and management

The virtual machine concept; data structures needed by operating systems
Process state transition
Scheduling algorithms and metrics for the analysis of performance

Memory management

Virtual memory
Single and multi-level paging algorithms
Caching

Concurrency control

Race conditions
Semaphores
Deadlock

Compilation vs. interpretation

Lexical analysis

Parsing

Recursive descent
Table-driven techniques

Code generation

This will only be a brief overview to introduct the subject

Functions of a DBMS

The three level architecture

Data models -- a brief overview

Relational
Network
Hierarchical

Relational database concepts

domains; tuples; relations; attributes; referential and entity integrity

SQL

A practical introduction to SQL as a declarative procedural query language

Distributed systems issues

How and why the provision of system-level services becomes more difficult in a distributed environment

Lecture presentations with associated class problems.

The course has the following assessment components:

• Coursework Section (3 pieces, 15%)
• Written Examination (2.5 hours, 85%)

To pass this course, students must:

• Obtain an overall pass mark of 50% for all sections combined

The examination rubric is:
Answer 1 question from each of the 3

sections (1 from the 2 in each section); all questions carrry equal marks.