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COSC2626/2640 Cloud Computing
Assessment 3
1. Overview
For this assignment you are required to demonstrate your understanding of concurrency, parallel processing, and data centre infrastructure.
2. Learning outcomes
This assessment is relevant to the Course Learning Outcomes CLOs 4 ~ 6.
3. Assessment details
This assessment will determine your ability to
o Understand the concepts taught over Week 10 to Week 12 of the course.
o Work independently in self-directed study to research the identified issues.
4. Submission
o Prepare the answers to this assignment in an electronic format and convert to a single Acrobat PDF (.pdf) file for submission, with the filename being your student number (e.g., S1234567.pdf) containing all the answers to all the questions in this assignment.
Paper submissions are not accepted.
o You should submit your assignment via Canvas → Assignments → Assessment 3 Submission.
o It is your responsibility to correctly submit your files. Please verify that your submission is correctly submitted by downloading what you have submitted to see if your submitted file includes the correct content.
o Never leave submission to the last minute – you may have difficulty uploading files.
o You can submit multiple times – a new submission will override any earlier submissions.
However, if your final submission is after the due time, late penalties will apply.
Important Note:
o Clearly number each answer according to the numbering in this assignment specification (e.g., Q1a, Q1b, Q1c, etc.).
o Use at least 12-point font size.
o Please keep your answers precise and concise.
§ For questions valued at 8 marks or less, responses should not exceed 120 words. Content beyond the first 120 words will not be considered for grading.
§ For questions worth 12 marks or more, please limit your response to 200 words. Any content beyond the initial 200 words will not be evaluated during grading.
o Marking is based on the knowledge and materials instructed in this course only. Irrelevant or incorrect answers may result in penalties.
6. Rubric and marking guidelines
Failure to follow the file format requirements (file format and font size) incurs 10% penalty (8 marks).
A penalty of 10% per day of the total available marks (8 marks) will apply for each day being late.
If you want to seek an extension of time for assignment submission, you must have a substantial reason for that, such as unexpected circumstances. Reasons such as, unable to cope with study load, is not substantial. Also, you must apply for an extension as soon as possible. Last minute extensions cannot be granted unless it attracts special consideration.
Please find out how to apply for special consideration online at https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/student-essentials/assessment-and-results/special- consideration/eligibility-and-how-to-apply
Any student wishing an extension must go through the official procedure for applying for extensions and must apply at least a week before the due date. Do not wait till the submission due date to apply for an extension.
7. COSC2626 vs COSC2640 questions
This assignment has 12 questions and students are required to answer all questions.
Questions 4, 8 and 12 have two versions, one for COSC2626 (if you enrolled in an undergraduate program), the other for COSC2640 (if you enrolled in a postgraduate program). You only need to attempt the ones coded for your course.
If you answer the wrong questions, your answers will not be marked.
Before You Start
Do not copy from lecture notes or other sources including ChatGPT. Use your own words and clearly demonstrate your understanding.
Concurrency and parallel processing (30 marks)
1. (6 marks) In a multicore system with multiple hardware threads, is it useful if the OS is aware of the hardware threads? Explain how this helps improve system performance.
2. (6 marks) Multiprocessors may use a shared queue or private queues (one for each of the processors). Discuss the advantage and disadvantage of using a shared ready queue and private queues.
3. (6 marks) Briefly explain how sum reduction works. In addition to the difference on communication methods (shared memory vs message passing), what is the key difference between shared memory and message passing multiprocessors performing sum reduction?
4. COSC2626 only. (12 marks) CPU, GPU and DPU are commonly used in the cloud for a variety of tasks. Discuss the kind of tasks that best suits each of the processors and what parallel processing architectures these processors use.
4. COSC2640 only. (12 marks) You are designing a program and want to take advantage of parallel processing. Discuss your design considerations and the types of processors to run the program.
Data centre infrastructure (50 marks)
5. (6 marks) Briefly describe how the Internet is structured, listing the key devices.
6. (6 marks) Discuss what makes a Tier-1 ISP and how ISP and CSP networks are connected. What is the financial implication?
7. (8 marks) From network topology point of view, discuss and explain the similarity and the difference between institutional networks and data centre networks.
8. COSC2626 only. (6 marks) A data centre may provide many different applications and services at the same time, such as search engine, web hosting, email, video streaming, etc. As a result, it has to handle a tremendous number of requests for these different applications. Describe how the requests are distributed and handled.
8. COSC2640 only. (6 marks) A data centre may provide many different applications and services at the same time, such as search engine, web hosting, email, video streaming, etc. Discuss if it is a good idea to expose the servers to the clients, that is, allowing clients to contact these servers directly. Explain your choice.
9. (6 marks) You are tasked to design the tools for live VM migration within a data centre. Discuss and compare the data transfer protocols that you may use.
10. (6 marks) In video streaming over HTTP such as YouTube, there is a large variation in the amount of bandwidth available to a client, across different clients or over time for the same client. Is this an issue? Explain how a streaming protocol would handle this issue.
11. (6 marks) Suppose you are visiting a news website. The news agency has its video content hosted in a third-party data centre, say, AWS. While reading a piece of news, you clicked a video link. Describe the procedure how the video clip was retrieved.
12.COSC2626 only. (6 marks) When a client sends a request to a CDN, the CDN needs to determine which server will provide the requested content. Discuss how the server may be determined as well as the corresponding issues.
12.COSC2640 only. (6 marks) A CDN hosts both static and dynamic content. Some is of local significance while some is of global significance. Discuss where the different types of content are stored as well as server capacity implication.