This course aims to provide introduction to advanced distributed system technologies and programming for mainframe servers and workstations. Students will gain the knowledge about fundamental concepts of distributed systems, particularly client-server models, and inter-process communications (IPC). Students will also learn the programming skill and train their problem solving ability about development of distributed systems for mainframe servers and workstations.  We will explore the state of art of distributed systems, such as remote procedure calls (RPC), fault tolerance, data replications and distributed database systems. Specifically, we will discuss the programming of client-server system, middleware systems, and RPC applications in great details.

For a student to pass the course, at least 30% of the maximum mark for the examination must be obtained.