CS4402/CS9535b
Distributed and Parallel Systems

Course Description

To best utilize parallel and distributed systems (multi-core, many-core and cluster) is nowadays an essential task for computer scientists.

This course studies the fundamental aspects of parallel systems and aims at providing an integrated view of the various facets of software development on such systems: hardware architectures, programming languages and models, software development tools, software engineering concepts and design patterns, performance modelling and analysis, experimenting and measuring, application to scientific computing.

Course topics may include but are not limited to:

• multi-core, GPGPU, cluster, distributed and shared memory, hierarchical memory,
• multi-thread (Julia, CilkPlus, OpenMP), multi-process, message passing (Julia, MPI),
• scheduling (work-stealing scheduler) and synchronization,
• parallel algorithm design and multithreaded program analysis: parallelism, granularity, memory bandwidth issue, scalability, data locality and cache complexity,
• Intel Parallel Composer (Cilk Plus, ArBB, TBB), data race and performance analyzer (Cilkview, Vtune)
• NVIDIA's CUDA for GPU
• Message Passing Interface (MPI)
• high-performance software engineering techniques,
• fundamental applications: matrix multiplication, matrix transposition, FFT, reduction, scan, sort, etc.

Follow this link for various resources (software tools and tutorials, hardware documentation, conferences, other HPC course web sites, etc.) regarding this course and HPC in general (http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~moreno/HPC-Resources.html).

Prerequisites for Undergraduate Students

• Students must be fluent in C or C++; they must also be familiar with UNIX software tools (shell scripts, makefiles, debuggers).

Instructor

Lecture Notes and Textbook

Notes of each lecture will be available on the course website, approximately one or two days after the oral presentation. There is no textbook.

Course Website

The course web site is accessible from: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~moreno/CS9535-4402-1617.html

Please check the site often for updates on lecture notes and errata. Also be aware that the course website is not a substitute for actual classroom attendance!

Course outline

Lecture Topics

The list of topics will be something in the order of:

• Overview of parallel computing
• Parallel and distributed computing with Julia
• The Cilk concurrency platform
• Multithreaded parallelism and performance
• Scheduling and Synchronizing
• Pipelining (Cilk-P, TBB)
• Many-core programming (GPGPUs)
• Code optimization techniques for multi-cores and GPGPUs
• High-Performance Computing with CUDA
• Multiprocessed parallelism, message passing (MPI)
• Other concurrency platforms (Open MP, Array Building Blocks, Threading Building Blocks)

Relation of CS4402 to CS3101

CS3101 is a new course which has started in the 2012-2013 academic year. Its web site is http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~moreno/CS3101-1415.html This course is meant to provide the necessary theoretical background (architectures, models of computations, algorithms) to understand and practice high-performance computing.

CS3101 can be seen as an extension of other CS courses such as

• 3331A - Foundations of Computer Science I,
• 3305B - Operating Systems,
• 3340B - Analysis of Algorithms I,
• 3350B - Computer Architecture,

Students who are taking CS4402 this 2016-2017 academic year may not have taken CS3101 in previous years since it was not offered last year. Therefore, for the 2016-2017 academic year, CS4402 is a self-contained course (as in previous years) where a sufficient subset of this theoretical background is presented.

Lecture Notes from 2016-2017

Problem Sets from 2016-2017

Readings for Problem Set 1

Quiz corrections from 2014-2015

Quiz corrections from 2016-2017

Class Schedule

Lectures: 3 hours (Tuesdays 15:30 - 16:20 in MC 320 and Wednesdays15:30 - 17:20 in MC-320.

Each student is expected to attend the lectures. In particular, quizzes (short written tests) may take place without notice.

Student Evaluation

• Evaluation methods are quizzes, assignments and projects.
• Assignments and projects constitute 1/3 and 1/3 of the course mark, respectively. There is no midterm examination and no final examination. However, there will be at least three quizzes. Quizzes constitute the last 1/3 of the course mark.
• Assignments consist of theoretical and programming exercises. CS 4402 projects can be theoretical work (research article presentations), practical (programming, experimentation and analysis) or a combination of both. CS 9535 projects are more advanced and must deal with current research topics, see details below.
• A quiz is a series of short and simple exercises similar to the examples of the course notes, whereas assignments consist of more advanced exercises.
• In order to successfully complete the course, a student must achieve at least 50% on assignments, 50% on projects and 50% on quizzes. This is to prevent a serious lack of effort in either area. Thus, a student cannot get 100% on assignments and projects and barely pass the quizzes.
• A CS4402 project topic is chosen by the student from a list of topics proposed by the instructor. Project topics will be posted by February 14 (tentative) and each student must choose a project topic by March 23 (at the very latest). The projects will be presented in class by the students during the last week of classes. Each presentation will consist of a 15 minute talk followed by questions for 10 minutes. A detailed project report will also be required and due by April 6.
• For CS9535, there is no Assignment Two, while the Project is of much larger scale and start during the Assignment Two period. CS9535 projects must deal with current research topics (in the scope of this course's contents) and can be related to the student thesis (in fact, this is recommended). The topic of each CS9535 project must be discussed individually with the instructor during the Assignment Two period. This implies a literature review to be done by the student and presented to the instructor during a face-to-face meeting. By March 7, (preferably earlier) the objectives of each CS9535 project must be well-defined by the student and approved by the instructor. This will give the mark for Assignment Two. Projects must then be implemented and will be presented in class during the last week of classes, as for CS4402. With this definition of the CS9535 project and CS9535 Assignment Two, the mark allotment is the same as for CS4402. That is, assignments, projects and quizzes constitute 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3 of the CS9535 mark, respectively.

Assignment/Project/Quiz Schedule

All dates are tentative and currently subject to change, although it is doubtful by any significant amount.

If for any reason the schedule given above cannot be adhered to, the assignment, project and quiz marks will be pro-rated. For instance, if an assignment has to be cancelled for any reason, the remaining assignment weight will be prorated to add up to 1/3.)

Every effort will be made to have assignments, projects and quizzes marked and handed back within 3 weeks of the hand-in date, preferably sooner.

Quizzes

Quizzes may be held without being announced in advance.

Quizzes will be closed book.

Assignments

Assignments will be due on the (tentative) dates listed above. The assignment will be sent by email to the instructor.

Extensions will be granted only by the course instructor. If you have serious medical or compassionate grounds for an extension, you should take supporting documentation to the office of the Dean of your faculty, who will contact the instructor.

Projects

A project topic is chosen by the student and approved by the instructor. Presenting in class research articles is a typical project. See the resource page for possible research articles to review and present in class. More articles can be proposed by the instructor on a particular topic of interest, upon request by the student. Each undergraduate (resp. graduate) student must choose a project topic by March 7 (resp. 23 at the very latest). The undergraduate projects will be presented in class by the students during the last week of classes while graduate projects will be presented before the end of the term. Each presentation will consist of a 15 minute talk followed by questions for 5 to 10 minutes. A detailed project report will also be required and due by April 6 (resp. 30) f0r undergraduate (resp. graduate) students

For CS9535, there is no Assignment Two, while the Project is of much larger scale and start during the Assignment Two period. CS9535 projects must deal with current research topics (in the scope of this course's contents) and can be related to the student thesis (in fact, this is recommended). The topic of each CS9535 project must be discussed individually with the instructor during the Assignment Two period. This implies a literature review to be done by the student and presented to the instructor during a face-to-face meeting. By March 14, (preferably earlier) the objectives of each CS9535 project must be well-defined by the student and approved by the instructor. This will give the mark for Assignment Two. With this definition of the CS9535 project and CS9535 Assignment Two, the mark allotment is the same as far CS4402. That is, assignments, projects and quizzes constitute 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3 of the CS9535 mark, respectively.

Computing Facilities

Each student will be given an account on the Computer Science Department senior undergraduate computing facility, GAUL. In accepting the GAUL account, a student agrees to abide by the department's Rules of Ethical Conduct

Note: After-hours access to certain Computer Science lab rooms is by student card. If a student card is lost, a replacement card will no longer open these lab rooms, and the student must bring the new card to a member of the Systems Group in Middlesex College Room 346.