Distributed Computing -- Assignment 2

<body> <table> <tr> <td>  <p class="c1"><a href="http://www.gu.edu.au/" target="_top"><img src="images/gu.gif" width="89" height="74" alt="Griffith University" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="c1"><a href="http://www.gu.edu.au/school/cit/" target="_top">ICT Home</a></p> <hr /> <p class="c1"><a href="http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/teaching/3510CIT/index.shtml" target="_top">DC Home</a></p> <p class="c1"><a href="http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/teaching/3510CIT/news.shtml" target="_top">Notice Board</a></p> <p class="c1"><a href="http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/teaching/3510CIT/resources.shtml" target="_top">Resources</a><br /> <a href="http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/teaching/3510CIT/modules.shtml" target="_top">Modules</a></p>  <p class="c1"><a href="http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/teaching/3510CIT/virgil.shtml" target="_top">Virgil Main</a></p> <p class="c1"><a href="http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/teaching/3510CIT/forum.shtml" target="_top">Virgil Forum</a></p> <hr />  </td> <td> <h1>Assignment 2 (Draft)</h1> <p>The aim of this assignment is to deepen your experience in designing and implementing distributed computing applications on the Internet using remote objects. The programming language will be Java. Communication protocols in the distributed application will be based on Java RMI or Corba.</p> <h2>The Task</h2> <p>Your task in this assignment is to design, implement, test and discuss a distributed bank account based on a sequential consistency algorithm.</p> <p>The distributed system should consist of a number of peers that make available distributed bank account objects consisting of (at least):</p> <dl> <dt><tt>Name</tt></dt> <dd>The name of the account</dd> <dt><tt>Transactions</tt></dt> <dd>A list of transactions that have occurred on this account</dd> <dt><tt>Balance</tt></dt> <dd>The current account balance</dd> </dl> <p>The following methods should be available over the network (you can define further methods if you want):</p> <dl> <dt><tt>AddNode(name)</tt></dt> <dd>Register a new member node with a given name with the collective (the name can be a simple string).</dd> <dt><tt>RemNode(name)</tt></dt> <dd>Remove a member node from the system</dd> <dt><tt>DepositWithdraw(amount)</tt></dt> <dd>Deposit a certain amount of money on the account (or withdraw if the amount is negative).</dd> <dt><tt>AddInterest(percent)</tt></dt> <dd>Calculate a percentage interest from the current balance and this to the balance of the account.</dd> </dl> <h3>User Interface</h3> <p>Each peer should display</p> <ul> <li>The name of the account (changeable by the user).</li> <li>The current account balance, and</li> <li>the list of transactions that have occurred</li> </ul> <p>In addition, the user should have the ability to deposit or withdraw an amount of money from the account or have a certain amount of interest added to the account.</p> <p>All changes should only occur locally until the user clicks on a <tt>Sync</tt> button (to simulate network delays, etc.). Furthermore your program should allow sequential consistency to be switched on or off. If the <tt>Sync</tt> button gets pressed with sequential consistency switched on, the list of transactions should be sequentially consistent across all peers, otherwise the list should show the local order of events.</p> <p>Here is an example of what the user interface could look like:</p> <img src="a2client.png" width="484" height="427" alt="Distributed Bank Account" /> <h2>General suggestions</h2> <ol> <li>Read this document carefully.</li> <li>Attend all lectures and lab sessions for discussing the techniques related to this assignment.</li> <li>Review the book chapters about synchronisation and consistency!</li> <li>A simple way to ensure sequential consistency is to use Lamport timestamps and number the nodes (peers). If two events have the same time stamp, use the node number as a sorting criterion.</li> </ol> <h2>Assessment</h2> <p>This assignment is worth 30 marks (30% of the total maximum marks for the course).</p> <p>You need to work individually on this assignment! You cannot work in groups or in pairs.</p> <p>Your project will be judged on its correctness, functionality, documentation, and general quality. 80 % of the total marks will be allocated for the correctness, functionality, and quality of the implemented program, and 20 % of the total marks for the quality of the accompanying documentation and lab presentation.</p> <h2>Submission procedure</h2> <p>You must submit your work (including your program and and documentation) electronically using <a href="Virgil/Virgil.cgi/dc?submit-assignment2">this web page</a>.</p> <p>You should submit your work in time. Penalties for late submissions are 10% per day late!</p> <h3>Due Date</h3> <p> This assignment is due on COB, Friday, 13 October 2006 (End of week 11). </p> <h3>Electronic submission</h3> <p>Your electronic submission should consist of a <a href="cgi-bin/man.cgi?zip"><tt>ZIP</tt></a> file, including a .jar file capable of being executed, a well-presented, compilable listing of your source, and documentation (see below). You need to demonstrate your running program in the week after the assignment is due (or the week thereafter, if you are submitting late).</p> <p><a href="Virgil/Virgil.cgi/dc?submit-assignment2">Use Virgil to electronically submit</a> your assignment <a href="Virgil/Virgil.cgi/dc?submit-assignment2">by following this link</a>.</p> <h3>Documentation Submission</h3> <p>Your documentation should be in electronic form. It should be included in the above <a href="cgi-bin/man.cgi?zip"><tt>ZIP</tt></a> file and comprise the following:</p> <ol> <li>A cover page, clearly showing the code and name of the course (3510CIT Distributed Computing), your name and student number.</li> <li>A report containing a brief description of your design, the reasons for your main design decisions, a summary of the program's functionality and limitations, a reflective analysis of your approach and achievements, a description of the testing performed, a discussion of how you could extend the program, and instructions for running the program.</li> <li>A documentation of the class hierarchy, including the objects and methods that implement the program.</li> <li>A listing of the Java source files (with sensible comments) which implement the program (if you include this in your main documentation, please make sure that you include the compilable <tt>.java</tt> files as well!).</li> </ol> <hr /> <p>Last Changed: $Date: 2006/09/18 09:06:47 $</p> </td> </tr> </table>  <p><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img border="0" src="images/valid-xhtml10.png" alt="Valid XHTML 1.0!" height="31" width="88" /></a></p>  </body>