Seminar 6: Poster Assignment Introduction | Continuing Tasks and Support
Goal: Introduction to the Poster assignment and continuous support, addressing queries, clarifying doubts, and refining the implementation.
Introduction
In this session, we consolidate our understanding of key distributed systems concepts and begin preparing for the course’s poster session in the final practice session.
We’ve covered topics such as microservices, communication protocols, master-worker model, threading, synchronization, vector clocks, leader election, and will keep learning about mutual exclusion, replication, consistency, and consensus — now it's time to learn how these concepts can be applied in other contexts.
Your task: Identify a new real-world application beyond our online bookstore project where distributed systems principles solve specific challenges. Consider domains like healthcare, finance, transportation, or manufacturing, demonstrating your ability to adapt these concepts to diverse scenarios.
Task
- Research: Conduct some research to identify a suitable scenario or application, sufficiently distinct from the online bookstore context, where distributed system concepts can be applied effectively.
- Problem Identification: Identify specific problems or challenges within the chosen scenario that could benefit from the application of distributed system topics.
- Topic Selection: Select a subset of distributed system topics explored in our practice sessions that are most relevant to addressing the identified problems or challenges. We expect around 4 topics to be explored, selecting from microservices architecture, communication protocols, master and worker model, synchronization, vector clocks, leader election, mutual exclusion, replication, consistency, consensus, commitment and more yet to come. Discuss with your TA the topics you would like to explore and the depth of your work.
- Concept Application: Apply your selection of distributed system topics to the chosen scenario, illustrating how each concept can be utilized to solve specific problems or improve specific properties of the system.
- Visualization: Develop or adapt the previously made visual aids, diagrams, or charts to effectively communicate the adaptation of distributed system concepts to the chosen scenario within the poster.
- Explanation: Provide clear and concise explanations of how each distributed system concept is applied and the potential benefits or implications for the chosen application.
- Evaluation: Assess the feasibility and effectiveness of applying distributed system concepts to the chosen scenario, considering factors such as scalability, reliability, performance, fault tolerance, etc…
- Deadline: The poster should be submitted latest by the 23th of May. The poster will be presented on the 30th of May between 12:00 - 14:00, in a joint session with all the course participants. Please use the standard poster size (36" x 24") when preparing your poster. Use the university template (preferably the vertical version).
- Evaluation: The poster is worth 5 points:
- Clarity and Visual Appeal (1.5 points): This evaluates how well-organized, structure and visually engaging the poster layout is, ensuring that the main points are clearly presented with effective use of text, design or visual elements.
- Content Relevance (1.5 point): This assesses the relevance of the distributed system concepts to the chosen scenario and the effectiveness of linking them to specific problems within the scenario through a system model, ensuring alignment with the overall theme of the poster.
- Depth of Analysis and Creativity (1 points): This evaluates the depth of exploration of applying the concepts to the scenario, including insightful observations, thorough coverage of relevant aspects, considerations of alternative approaches, trade-offs or performance/fault-tolerance/reliability evaluation, among others. This also examines the originality and uniqueness of the ideas.
- Collaboration (1 points): This evaluates the extent to which group members effectively collaborate, communicate, and contribute to the development of the poster, including sharing responsibilities, providing constructive feedback, and ensuring the overall coherence and quality of the final result.
In this session, apart from familiarizing ourselves with the Poster task, we're moving beyond the basics and focusing on refining the project implementation. This week is all about finishing the pending tasks, cleaning up your codebase and addressing any questions or challenges you might be facing in the previous phases of the project. As you continue to build your distributed system, we're here to provide ongoing support. Feel free to share your progress and leverage the support channels available. Your practice session TA is here to assist you in navigating any obstacles and ensuring your project is on the right track.
Additionally, in this session, we encourage you to align your efforts and prepare for the upcoming Checkpoint #2 evaluation. The guidelines for the evaluation can be found here: Session 8. Familiarize yourself with the evaluation criteria to ensure your project meets the required standards.