CS4027 & CS5043 Introduction

2 Basics... Lecturer: Wamberto Vasconcelos – –Room 232, Meston Bldg. Web pages: myAberdeen –Its work-in-progress –Also: hing/CS4027/ hing/CS5043/ –Input appreciated (comments, problems spotted) Please check Web-pages regularly

3 Lectures and practicals Lectures –Monday 10-11, Meston 2 –Thursday 9-10, New Kings G11 Drop-in session –Wednesday 9-10, Meston 232 Lab practicals –From next week onwards –Thursday, 1-3PM, Meston Building 311 –Linux/Windows 7 –Some provisions/instructions for laptops

4 Sharing... Lectures (shared) Lab practicals (shared location) –MSc/UG may get different practicals In-course assessments different Exam papers different

5 Structure of the course Peer-to-Peer Computing (P2PC) 4 weeks (8 lectures) 3 practicals Agent-Based Computing (ABC) 8 weeks (16 lectures) Remaining practicals In-course assessment Worth 25% Published late October/early November

6 Required reading Peer-to-Peer Computing (P2PC) From P2P and Grids to Services on the Web, 2 nd Edition, I. J. Taylor & A. Harrison, Springer, 2008 –1 st Edition OK (library has copies) Agent-Based Computing (ABC) An Introduction to Multi-Agent Systems, 2 nd Ed., M. Wooldridge, John Wiley & Sons, –1 st Edition OK (library has copies)

7 Agents and peers Related but not the same: –Both communicate via message-passing –You should be able to differentiate these at the end of this course! Peers: –Content distribution (file sharing) –Limited autonomy and intelligence Agents: –Buying and selling, information gathering –Different degrees of autonomy and intelligence

8 Whats peer-to-peer computing? Theory: –Protocols – kinds & order of messages exchanged –Topology – how peers exchange messages –Information – what peers need to function Practice: P2P applications for –Document management (in a large company) –Collaborative design (involving 100s of people) –Communication –Content (music/film) distribution Examples: –BBC iPlayer –Skype

9 Whats agent-based computing? Theory: –Protocols and games –Languages for specifying and programming –Information needs of agents Practice: –IDEs for agents and multi-agent systems –Agents in commerce (stocks/shares, B2B) –Simulation (evacuation, traffic) –Decision support (air traffic control) Examples: –eBay –Stock Exchange –Battle scenes of Lord of the Rings

10 What you will learn/do in this course... P2P/ABC techniques and applications Theory of peers/agents Use IDEs and JARs for peers/agents Develop simple peers/agents Issues in design, analysis, implementation and testing of peers/agents. Lets start!

11 Links av2n l eature=pyv