CS 854 – Advanced Topics in Computer Systems

Course Info

• Instructor: Ali Mashtizadeh
• Discussion: Piazza
• Email: mashti AT uwaterloo DOT ca (start subject line with CS854)
• Lecture: Monday/Wednesday DC2585 3:30-4:50PM
• Office Hours: DC 3552D, TBD

Grading (subject to change)

• 25% Class Participation
• 25% Paper Summaries/Presentations
• 10% Labs
• 40% Project

Class Participation

Everyone is expected to read every paper and be prepared to discuss them in class.

Course Overview

The course will explore mostly recent systems papers with a focus on performance optimization and evaluation of systems. We will cover many topics from different areas of systems to build a better understanding of computer performance and help you learn how to evaluate your systems better. Three mini labs will help you learn a few practical tools to evaluate software performance at different levels. The group project will provide students with the opportunity to work on a small project and conduct further investigation and problem solving on their own.

Background

• Undergraduate level understanding of operating systems.
• Programming in C or other systems langauges

Course Readings and Presentations

A one page maximum response to each paper is due in class or by email before the start of class. See the reading list page.

Students will present 2 (may be more or less depending on enrollment) papers from the reading list and lead the class discussion. You should cover the background material including the basic design, implementation, and evaluation of the system. A great presentation should lead directly to a discussion around the paper's design decisions, assumptions, and results. Students who present a third paper will have their lowest presentation grade dropped.

Course Project

• Individual or group projects of 2 or 3 people.
• Project paper will be due the last day of class.
• Each group should present and demo their project.
• Each group will need to submit a project proposal for approval

Academic Integrity

Students are generally not permitted to submit the same work for credit in multiple classes, e.g., do not present the same paper in multiple seminars.

Students are expected to follow the university policies.

Students with Disabilities

The Office for Persons with Disabilities (OPD), located in Needles Hall, Room 1132, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with the OPD at the beginnieach academic term.