Logistics

Instructor: Frans Kaashoek (kaashoek@mit.edu)
Lecture: MW1-2.30 (3-370)
Discussion: Piazza

Grading: 10% class participation, 20% paper presentation, 30% intermediate project reports, 40% final project. There will be no exams. If it's clear you put significant effort into class discussion, the paper(s) for which you were the lead, the reports, and your project, you'll get an A.

If you'd like to take this course, please send e-mail to kaashoek@mit.edu with the two or three papers from the schedule for which you'd most like to lead discussion, and a few sentences about your relevant background and interests.

Project

The main focus of 6.5810 is a project. A good project will build/extend a system using a new idea or explore/measure an existing widely-used system in some interesting way. The project can be related to your graduate research, as long as it overlaps with the themes in the course. Collaboration is encouraged but not required: each project can be done in groups of two or individually.

The project includes:

• a project proposal (a few paragraphs): your project idea, how you plan to evaluate it, and your teammate (if applicable).
• a design report (1 page): the motivation and design of your system.
• an implementation status report (1 page): the implementation status of system.
• an initial result report (1 page): your preliminary results.
• a final report (roughly 6 pages), and presentation to the class.

If you don't have project in mind, here are some ideas/directions for projects.

Paper Discussion

Most class meetings will consist of paper discussions. Everyone should read each paper and be prepared to argue about it, both about technical details and the extent to which the paper's design and ideas seem promising. Each paper discussion will be led by a student. For the paper(s) you're assigned to lead, you should come to class prepared with:

• A introduction (should be quick, since everyone has read the paper).
• Where the paper fits into an overall picture of serverless computing.
• A summary of what we should learn from the paper: interesting ideas and lessons.
• Opinions about whether the system is likely to be useful and successful.
• Experience using and/or programming the system, if that is possible (download the software and run it, play with their web site, etc.). Feel free to project a demo from your laptop.
• Explanations of important techniques that may be hard to understand.
• Background or related information you find by following links, searching, or reading cited work.
• Areas in which the system seems weak, particularly areas in which new research and ideas seem to be needed.
• Questions for the class to consider.