University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
                Department of Computer Science

                SPRING 1994 COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT

            COMP 290-042: Topics in Computer Science
                   (Distributed File Systems)
              Time and place TBA (contact instructor)
                       1.5 credit hours       

INSTRUCTOR: Don Smith <smithfd@cs.unc.edu>

PURPOSE: Distributed file systems play a central role in modern
computing systems because they provide data sharing in decentralized
environments.  Moreover, because their implementations are usually
decentralized, they illustrate significant design problems common to
most distributed systems.  The goal of this course is to tour the
"zoo" of distributed file systems with emphasis on analyzing design
issues in real systems.  Distributed database systems are not included
in this course. 

PREREQUISITE: COMP 243 (or permission of the instructor)

APPROACH: A combination of lectures and discussions of readings.  Homework
          will include assigned readings and preparation of reports (2-3)
          on selected topics for presentation in class.  There will be two
          exams (mid-term and final).

READINGS: Research papers and product documentation.

DESIGN ISSUES: file naming, protection, security, concurrent access,
               high availability, heterogeneity, transparency, 
               transactions, scalability, and file access characteristics.

SYSTEMS: Diskless workstations, Locus, NFS, AFS, Sprite, Coda