[comp.sys.isis] BOLOGNA 90: An Advanced Course on Distributed Systems

ozalp@ishtar.cs.cornell.edu (Ozalp Babaoglu) (01/18/90)

BOLOGNA '90			 		        AN ADVANCED COURSE
						    ON DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

		     July 23 -- August 2, 1990
		University of Bologna, Bologna (ITALY)

Lecturers:

Prof. O. Babaoglu, Bologna, Italy
Dr. A. J. Herbert, APM Ltd, UK
Dr. B. Lampson, DEC, USA
Dr. S. J. Mullender, CWI, NL
Prof. R. M. Needham, Cambridge, UK
Prof. M. Satyanarayanan, CMU, USA
Prof. F. B. Schneider, Cornell, USA
Dr. M. D. Schroeder, DEC, USA
Prof. S. Toueg, Cornell, USA
Prof. W. E. Weihl, MIT, USA


OBJECTIVE:   Bologna '90 is the third offering of the Advanced Course on
Distributed Systems.  The two previous offerings were held in Ithaca,
New York (Fingerlakes '89) and Tromso, Norway (Arctic '88).  The
objective of the course is to familiarize practitioners and researchers
with key issues in distributed systems.  The lectures will discuss the
fundamental problems of the area, review known solutions and paradigms,
and show how to apply known theoretical results to the design of
practical systems.  Bologna '90 lecturers are internationally-known
researchers whose interests and experiences span the full range of
distributed computing.


FORMAT:  The course will be organized as a series of daily lectures
with several afternoon discussion sections.  The discussions will
permit small groups of attendees to interact directly with the
lecturers, either to focus on issues that arise during the lectures or
to pursue other topics of interest to the group.  Attendees will be
assumed to have a familiarity with basic operating systems concepts.


COURSE OUTLINE:

Introduction
	Why distributed systems?  (Schroeder)
	Motivation, requirements, goals, advantages, limitations  (Schroeder)
	Fundamental issues for implementors  (Schneider)

Fundamental Concepts
	Ordering of events, causality, logical clocks  (Babaoglu)
	Stable states, consistent cuts, distributed snapshots  (Toueg)

Communication
	Interprocess communication  (Mullender)
	Remote procedure calls (Mullender)
	Design of high-speed local networks  (Schroeder)

Distributed Services and Access Control
	Design of a distributed name service  (Needham)
	Cryptography-based authentication servers  (Needham)
	Protection and security in distributed systems  (Lampson)

Fault Tolerance
	Agreement, coordination  and commitment  (Babaoglu)
	Reliable clock synchronization  (Schneider, Toueg)
	Replication management (Schneider)

Language Support for Reliable Distributed Applications
	Transactional and other models and their applications  (Weihl)
	Theory of distributed transactions  (Weihl)

Data Storage
	Distributed file system design  (Satyanarayanan)
	Replicated data management  (Toueg)

Methodology
	High-level specifications of distributed applications  (Weihl)
	Derivation of provably-correct distributed programs (Schneider)
	Abstractions for simplifying distributed algorithms  (Toueg)

Distributed Systems Architecture
	Design of high-performance kernels for distributed systems (Mullender)
	The Advanced Networked Systems Architecture (Herbert)



BOLOGNA '90						The Lecturers


OZALP BABAOGLU is Professor of Computer Science at the University of
Bologna, Italy where he leads the Paralex project whose goal is to
design and implement an integrated environment for programming,
debugging, monitoring and controlling reliable distributed
applications.  Babaoglu was a principal designer and implementor of
Berkeley UNIX.  He is an editor for Springer-Verlag Distributed Computing.

ANDREW J. HERBERT is technical director of Architecture Projects
Management Ltd (APM), based in Cambridge, England.  APM provides the
technical centre for the Integrated Systems Architecture (ISA) Project
in the ESPRIT programme.  ISA is a major European collaborative project
for the development of standards for distributed computing.  Its work
is based on the Advanced Networked Systems Architecture (ANSA)
developed during an earlier project in the UK Alvey programme.

BUTLER LAMPSON is a member of the research staff at Digitals Systems
Research Center in Palo Alto, California and Cambridge Research
Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He has worked on computer
architecture, high-speed networks, raster printers, page description
languages, operating systems, remote procedure call, programming
languages and their semantics, programming in the large, fault-tolerant
computing, computer security, and WYSIWYG editors.

SAPE J. MULLENDER is head of the Amoeba distributed systems project at
the Centre of Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam, The
Netherlands.  He is particularly interested in high-performance
distributed computing and the design of scalable fault-tolerant
services.  He is also concerned about organization and protection in
distributed systems that can span a continent.

ROGER M. NEEDHAM is Professor of Computer Systems and Head of the
Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, England and a
Fellow of the Royal Society.  He has contributed extensively to every
aspect of distributed computing and has most recently been interested
in computer protection and security.

MAHADEV SATYANARAYANAN is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at
Carnegie Mellon University.  His research addresses the problem of data
access in large-scale distributed systems.  He currently leads the Coda
project, whose goal is to provide highly-available distributed file
access.  Earlier, he was a principal architect and implementor of the
Andrew file system.

FRED B. SCHNEIDER is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at
Cornell University.  His research is primarily concerned with
methodologies for designing and reasoning about concurrent programs,
particularly fault-tolerant and distributed ones.  He is the managing
editor of Distributed Computing and an editor for Information
Processing Letters and Springer-Verlag Texts and Monographs in Computer
Science.

MICHAEL D. SCHROEDER is a member of the research staff at Digitals
Systems Research Center in Palo Alto, California.  His particular
interest is discovering practical structures for distributed systems.
He has worked on computer protection and security, encryption-based
authentication protocols, computer message systems, naming in large
networks, remote procedure call performance, distributed file systems,
and high-speed local area networks.

SAM TOUEG is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cornell
University.  His current research interests include distributed
systems, fault tolerance, real-time systems and distributed databases.

WILLIAM E. WEIHL is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  His research interests focus on
parallel and distributed computing, particularly in the areas of
programming methodology, programming languages, specification
techniques, synchronization, and fault tolerance.  He is one of the
principal designers of the Argus and Mercury systems developed at MIT.



BOLOGNA '90					General Information



LOCATION:  Bologna is a delightful, mid-size, North-Italian city that
is off the beaten tourist path.  Among all European cities, it is
considered to have the best-preserved historic center containing
exquisite examples of medieval architecture with narrow, portico-lined
streets.  The University of Bologna, home for Umberto Eco, has always
been a cultural and intellectual center for the city.  In 1988, the
University celebrated its 900th anniversary, making it the oldest
university in the western world.  Last but not least, Bologna lays
claim to being the gastronomical capital of Italy.  All of Central and
Northern Italy can be easily reached by train for day trips from
Bologna.  Here are some destinations:  Florence (1 hour);  Milan,
Venice, Pisa, Padova, Verona, Ferrara, Vicenza, Ravenna (all under 2
hours); Torino, Genova (under 3 hours); Rome (3 hours 30 minutes).


ACCOMMODATIONS:  A number of university residence halls and hotels, all
within walking distance of the course site, will be available to the
attendees.  Upon completion of the enclosed form and payment of a
deposit, we will make reservations (subject to availability) for the
desired type of accommodation.  Reservations will be handled on a
first-come-first-served basis.  In case of unavailability, reservations
will be made for the next higher-price class of room.  If you wish to
make local arrangements on your own, a list of suitable hotels will be
supplied.


FEES:  The tuition for the course is 1.900.000 Italian Lire or
US$1400.  With proof of full-time student status, the course fee will
be reduced to 1.200.000 Italian Lire or US$900. The fee includes all
lectures and discussion sections; all course material including a copy
of the textbook "Distributed Systems"  (Sape J. Mullender, Ed., ACM
Press, 1989); all lunches and coffee breaks; welcome reception; social
dinner; a classical music concert or opera; and a guided tour of Bologna.


PAYMENT:  All payments must be made in either Italian Lire or US
Dollars.  Payment of the tuition fee and the room deposit can be made
through a bank cheque payable to "ADVANCED COURSE 90" accompanying the
registration form or a direct bank transfer to account no. 42853 at
Credito Romagnolo, sede Via Rizzoli 34, Bologna, specifying "ADVANCED
COURSE 90".  In case of a direct transfer, a photo copy of the bank
document should accompany the registration form.  No credit cards can
be accepted.


DEADLINES:  Registration deadline is May 15, 1990.  Registrations
beyond this date will be accepted at the amount of 2.170.000 Italian
Lire or US$1600 for normal registrants and 1.470.00 Italian Lire or
US$1100 for full-time students.  No refunds will be issued after June
23, 1990.  In case of low participation levels, the organizers reserve
the right to cancel the course at full reimbursement of paid fees.

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BOLOGNA '90						  Registration Form

Please type or print:

Last Name:_____________________________ First Name:________________________

Affiliation:_________________________________ Title:_______________________

Address:___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Telephone:______________________________ E-mail:___________________________

Are you a full-time student?  NO   YES (please enclose appropriate proof)


BOLOGNA '90					      Room Reservation Form

Category of room desired
(approximate daily prices in Italian Lire including breakfast):
	 _
	|_| Residence Hall (40.000 single,   60.000 double,
			 deposit: 120.000)
	 _
	|_| 2-star hotel (75.000-90.000 single,   90.000-120.000 double,
			deposit:  270.000)
	 _
	|_| 3-star hotel (85.000-100.000 single,   120.000-150.000 double,
			deposit:  300.000)
	 _
	|_| 4-star hotel (100.000-150.000 single,   150.000-180.000 double,
			 deposit:  450.000)

			 _		 _
Type of room desired:	|_| single	|_| double

With whom will you be sharing a room (in case you know)? ____________________
	 _		 _				 _	 _
Sex:	|_| female	|_| male	Do you smoke?	|_| no	|_| yes

Arrival Date:_________________________ Departure Date:________________________

Special requests or comments:_________________________________________________

Tuition________________Room deposit_______________Total amount________________
						  Enclosed / Transferred

Please return by May 15, 1990  to:	Italiana & Co.
					Via Oberdan 17
					40126 Bologna (ITALY)

					Tel. +39 51 228716   Fax +39 51 222881
					e-mail: bologna90@dm.unibo.it



------
Ozalp Babaoglu				E-mail:	ozalp@dm.unibo.it
University of Bologna
Department of Mathematics