CS349d: Cloud Computing Technology
Instructor: Christos Kozyrakis
TAs: Mark Zhao and Swapnil Gandhi
Spring 2024, Mon/Wed 4:30 PM - 5:50 PM, 320-109
Office Hours: TBD
The largest change in the computer industry over the past ten years has arguably been the emergence of cloud computing: organizations are increasingly moving their workloads to managed public clouds and using new, global-scale services that were simply not possible in private datacenters. However, both building and using cloud systems remains a mystery with many difficult research challenges. This research seminar will cover industry and academic work on cloud computing and survey key technical issues. Students will participate in guest lectures from leading experts across the field, read and lead discussions on papers, and do a quarter-long project in groups of 2-3.
Grading: The main evaluation will be around a project that students propose and execute during the course. Apart from that, each student is expected to present one of the papers and to participate in class. The grading rubric will be 60% project, 20% participation, and 20% paper presentations and summaries.
Discussion Site: Online discussions will take place at edstem. An account is created for all enrolled students using their Stanford email. Contact Mark or Swapnil if you have trouble connecting.
Gradescope: You will use Gradescope to submit paper summaries, which are due before the start of each class. You should be already enrolled in Gradescope, but if not, contact Mark or Swapnil.
Presentation Signup Form: Please sign up for lectures using this Google Form.
Schedule
this link.Assignments
The assignments for this class consists of: Paper Presentations, Paper Summaries, and a Project.
Paper Presentations
For lectures with assigned readings students will be assigned to present the papers and lead the class discussions. The assigned student(s) will spend roughly 5 minutes presenting the day's paper, and will then lead the subsequent discussion (~25 minutes). In your presentation, cover each of the following for each paper (see also the Presentation Template):
- Motivation: What is the key problem being addressed in this paper?
- Key insight: What are the key insights the author makes to address the problem?
- Novelty/Strengths: What is different from previous work, and why? Is it a new problem, a new solution, or a new environment for an existing problem? What are the strengths of the authors' approach?
- Critique: Is there anything you would change in the solution? What about in the way the authors presented or evaluated the solution?
- Discussion: List a set of questions to start the class discussion on the paper. For example, questions can focus on things you wish the paper addressed better, broader implications of the paper, or how you would expand on the work.
Paper Summaries
For lectures with assigned readings, everyone must submit a summary for each paper on Gradescope prior to the start of each class. Please see the Gradescope assignment for the specific requirements of each paper summary.
Projects
Students will propose and run a quarter-long project, ideally in groups of 2-3.
It is fine to use your existing research project if it is relevant to the course and the instructor approves.
You will present the project at the end of the course and write a
5-6 page report. See here for a list of project ideas.
Project timeline (TENTATIVE):
- Project proposal: April 19th
- Mid-term review: May 15th
- Presentation: June 3rd and June 5th (in class)
- Final report: June 12th at 6:30PM PT
Adapted from a template by Andreas Viklund.