CS 677 Distributed Operating Systems

Spring 2015

Programming Assignment 2: Internet of Things - Smarter Home Edition

Due: 5pm, Wed April 8, 2015



  • A: The problem


  • B. Evaluation and Measurement

    1. Deploy one sensor of each type and one device and demonstrate that your system works as expected.
    2. Meaure the latency and performane of your multi-tier gateway in terms of latency seen at each tier to process a request.
    3. Design a test to show your totally-ordered multicasting, clock syncronization algorithm really do the work as you expect.
    4. Design tests to show your algorithm to reason about ordering of events to determine when the user enters or leaves the home works as expected.

      Make necessary timeline plots or figures to support your conclusions.


  • C. What you will submit

  • When you have finished implementing the complete assignment as described above, you will submit your solution in the form of a zip file that you will upload into moodle.
  • Each program must work correctly and be documented. The zip file you upload to moodle should contain:
    1. An electronic copy of the output generated by running your program. Print informative messages when a client or server receives and sends key messages and the scores/medal tallies.
    2. A seperate document of approximately two pages describing the overall program design, a description of "how it works", and design tradeoffs considered and made. Also describe possible improvements and extensions to your program (and sketch how they might be made). You also need to describe clearly how we can run your program - if we can't run it, we can't verify that it works.
    3. A program listing containing in-line documentation.
    4. A seperate description of the tests you ran on your program to convince yourself that it is indeed correct. Also describe any cases for which your program is known not to work correctly.
    5. Performance results.

  • D. Grading policy for all programming assignments

    1. Program Listing
        works correctly ------------- 50%
        in-line documentation -------- 15%
    2. Design Document
        quality of design and creativity ------------ 15%
        understandability of doc ------- 10%
    3. Thoroughness of test cases ---------- 10%
    4. Grades for late programs will be lowered 12 points per day late.

  • Note about edlab machines

  • We expect that most of you will work on this lab on your own machine or a machine to which you have access. However we will grade your submission by running it on the EdLab machines, so please keep the following instructions in mind.
  • You will soon be given accounts on the EdLab. Read more about edlab and how to access it here
  • Although it is not required that you develop your code on the edlab machines, we will run and test your solutions on the edlab machines. Testing your code on the edlab machines is a good way to ensure that we can run and grade your code. Remember, if we can't run it, we can't grade it.
  • There are no visiting hours for the edlab. You should all have remote access to the edlab machines. Please make sure you are able to log into and access your edlab accounts.
  • IMPORTANT - No submissions are to be made on edlab. Submit your solutions only via moodle.

  • Stumped?

    1. Stumped on how to proceed? Better yet, ask the TA or the instructor by posting a question on the Piazza 677 questions. General clarifications are best posted on Piazza. Questions of a personal nature regarding this lab should be asked in person or via email.