Peer-to-Peer Computing and Networking

Instructor: Sanjeev Setia (setia at cs dot gmu dot edu)
Meeting Time: Thursday 4:30-7:10 pm.
Location: Room 277,  Enterprise Hall

Overview

Recently distributed applications and protocols based on peer-to-peer technology have emerged as an alternative to traditional distributed applications based on the client/server model. Projects such as Napster, Gnutella, Kazaa, Freenet, and SETI@home have attracted a great deal of press and public attention.

The past few years have also seen the emergence of application-level peer-to-peer networks, where functions such as routing for ad-hoc networks and multicast that were traditionally performed by the lower levels of the network stack are performed at the application level. This trend is driven by the the growing interest in pervasive and ubiquitous computing, and mobile and ad-hoc networks.

This course will provide an introduction to this exciting new area of computer systems. Some topics that will be discussed include:

• Unstructured P2P systems (Gnutella, Kazaa, Freenet)
• Structured P2P systems (Chord, Tapestry, CAN, Pastry)
• P2P File systems (Oceanstore, Past, CFS)
• Resilient Overlay Networks
• Parallel Computing using Desktop Grids
• Ad hoc and Sensor Networks
• P2P Middleware and Tools (JXTA, Groove)
  

Prerequisites

This course is being offered concurrently as IT 818 and CS 699, and is open to both Ph.D. students and M.S. students. The prerequisites for this class are CS 571 (Operating Systems) and CS 656 (Computer Networks). Students who have not taken these courses but believe they are capable of handling the requirements for the class can register for the class only after getting permission from the instructor. (Please see me or send me email if you fall in this category)

Requirements

The lectures in class will be based mostly on articles in the research literature. Students will be required to read assigned papers and submit (electronically) a critical assessment of each paper before its presentation in class, and participate in class discussions on each paper. For the first half of the semester, all the papers will be presented by the instructor. In the second half of the semester, each student will be required to give a presentation based on one or more papers from the reading list.

Each student will also have to complete a course project. This project could be a programming project or a research-oriented project depending on the interests and capabilities of the student.

The grade for the class will be based on:

• Class participation and paper summaries (20%)
• Class presentation (30%)
  
• Class project (50%)
  

Readings

There is no required textbook for this class. A general book containing a compilation of articles by many industry figures in the field is "Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies", editor Andy Oram, published O' Reilly, 2001.

Most of the lectures and discussion in class will be based on articles in the research literature. Click here for a preliminary list of papers to be discussed and presented in class.

Class Home Page

All information regarding this class will be posted on the class web site http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~setia/cs699-F04/