Department of Computer Science, Unit Catalogue 2009/10 |
CM10195: Systems architecture 2 |
 Credits:
| 6 |
| Level:
| Certificate |
| Period: | Semester 2 |
| Assessment:
| CW 30%, EX 70% |
| Supplementary Assessment: | CM10195 Mandatory Extra Work (where allowed by programme regulations) |
| Requisites:
| Before taking this unit you must take CM10194 |
| Description: | Aims: To introduce students to the layers and abstractions of modern computer systems architectures from Operating System to network interaction. To understand the storage, management and transmission of data on the computer and management of resources. To introduce the fundamental concepts of networking, providing the pre-requisites for discussion of distributed services. Learning Outcomes: On completion of this unit students will be able to: 1. demonstrate knowledge of computer architectures and their abstractions, from operating systems to distributed systems; 2. understand the concepts and mechanisms for the management, ownership and protection of computer resources; 3. understand various forms of network architectures; 4. demonstrate familiarity with the ISO Seven-layer model, the major forms of network addressing and the means of translating between them. Skills: Use of IT (T/F, A), Communication (A). Content: * Introduction to Operating Systems: history, levels, outline architecture, responsibilities - management, ownership and protection of resources. * Management - devices, processes, disk, stores. I-O. Memory, caches, virtual memory and memory management. Files, file systems, caching. Processes, process control, locking, synchronization. Security and authentication - users and processes. * The networking problem: interoperability and future-proofing. The protocol concept. The ISO 7-layer model. MAC and IP addresses and names. Translation Mechanisms (ARP, DHCP). DNS, LDAP and SSL. * Application abstractions: introduction to concepts of application servers, data servers, service requests and web services. |