Towne 321, Monday/Wednesday 4:30PM – 6:00PM
Text: Readings in Database Systems, 4th ed., Hellerstein and Stonebraker, with supplements
Zachary Ives, zives@cis.upenn.edu, (215) 746-2789
Office hours: Tuesday 2:00-3:00.
Location: 576 Levine Hall N (a.k.a. GRW building)
What are the basic algorithms, architectures, and principles of building high-performance, reliable systems for processing large volumes of structured data? Such systems typically separate the set of operations to be performed from their algorithmic execution; they provide consistency and atomicity semantics (as well as other "ACID" properties); and they manage data that is too large to fit in memory. Examples include relational database management systems, transaction processing monitors, XML and stream processing engines, and data integration, middleware, and peer-to-peer systems.
This course will focus on these questions, using foundational research papers, as well as recent papers from journals and conferences, as our basic guide.
CIS 550 (or equivalent) is strongly recommended, and basic familiarity with the relational data model, algebra, and calculus are required. Programming ability in Java, C, or C# is also required.
The format will be two one-and-a-half-hour lectures a week, plus assigned readings from the textbook and supplementary materials. A one-page summary/review of each paper must be submitted at least one hour prior to class. In some cases, students will be expected to lead the discussion and/or analysis of a paper. Every week we will assign groups to argue for the significance or superiority of one paper vs. the others. Additionally, there will be a research-oriented course project that will serve as the final exam. The course project will include an implementation with experimental validation, a project report, and a brief (~ 15 minute) presentation.
In addition to paper summaries/reviews (20%), there will be a "midterm report" that synthesizes and comments on one of the topics of the first half of the semester (25%), a final project (50%), and participation (5%).
(These may be useful for further depth.)
Last modified: Mon Jan 10 12:56:38 Eastern Standard Time 2005