CS 739 - Distributed Systems - Fall 2014

Introduction

The purpose of this project is to familiarize you with some aspects of cloud computing. You can choose one of four options for the project, based on your interests and skills: simulation, applications, infrastructure, or research.

This project should also be done in groups of 3-4. I suggest combining groups from project 1 if you like your partners.

Due Date

You must submit a one-page project proposal, due October 30th. Please email to the instructor by 11 am.
The project poster session will be from 9:30-11 on Thursday, December 11th.
The project report is due Monday, December 15th at 11:59 pm.

Project Options

There are twi project options:

Infrastructure: Develop cloud/distributed computing infrastructure
Research: Choose your own distributed systems project.
Applications: Create a distributed application

Poster session

We will have a poster session with all projects at the end of the semester. You will create a poster that describes the project, including its design and evaluation.

For the poster, you will be graded on clarity of presentation for the poster itself, as well as the clarity of your explanations when asked questions about your work.

Guidelines and templates for designing a scientific poster.
Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3

We have a number of options to print posters on our campus. Two of the most convenient and affordable ones are below. You can see their prices and other information at their websites. The closest to CS department is Digital Media Center on University Ave. Some of them require making an appointment, so investigate the options in advance.

Digital Media Center - appointments: (608) 265-4817.
College Library
Student Print

Poster Grading

I will be evaluating your poster against this rubric:

Coverage of research topic	Details on the poster capture the important information about the topic and increase the audience’s understanding.
Use of text	Text content is limited; appropriately brief where present.
Use of graphics	All graphics are related to the topic and make it easier to understand. Images convey technical detail (not just clip-art)
Organization	Information is very organized with clear titles and subheadings.
Layout and Design	All information on the poster is in focus and can be easily viewed and identified from 6 ft. away.
Related work	3-6 relevant closely related works are accurately documented.
Mechanics	No grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors.

Evaluation

It is important for you to evaluate the performance of your project, no matter what it is. You should strive for realistic performance measurements that predict what a real user would see. Advice is available here

Report

The report should be 7-14 pages if it was written in single column format, 11 point font, 1 inch margins. You can format it as you see fit.

Grading

Poster: 30%. Primary goal: clearly communicating your ideas visually and when talking to people
Paper: 70%. Primary goal: discussing motivation, design decisions, evaluation

Project2