University of Derby
School of Computing and Mathematics
In-course Assignment Specification
Module Code and Title: Distributed Systems (6CC505)
Assignment No. and Title: #2 – Distributed System Development
Assessment Tutor: Dr Ashiq Anjum
Weighting Towards Module Grade: 70%
Date Set:
Hand-In Deadline Date:
Monday, November 4, 2013
Friday, January 3 , 2013, 4.00pm
Penalty for Late Submission
Recognising that deadlines are an integral part of professional workplace practice, the University expects
students to meet all agreed deadlines for submission of assessments. However, the University
acknowledges that there may be circumstances which prevent students from meeting deadlines. There
are now 3 distinct processes in place to deal with differing student circumstances:
1) Assessed Extended Deadline (AED): Students with disabilities or long term health issues are entitled
to a Support Plan.
2)
Exceptional Extenuating Circumstances (EEC): The EEC policy applies to situations where serious,
unforeseen circumstances prevent the student from completing the assignment on time or to the normal
standard. http://www.derby.ac.uk/files/part_i_exceptional_extenuating_circumstances.pdf
3) Late Submission: Requests for late submission will be made to the relevant Subject Manager in the
School (or Head of Joint Honours for joint honours students) who can authorise an extension of up to a
maximum of one week.
http://www.derby.ac.uk/files/part_f_assessment_regulations_ug_programmes.pdf
Level of Collaboration
This is a group assignment; however, the assessment will be individual. The critical review part in task 5
has to be done individually and no collaboration with other students or anyone else is allowed.
Learning Outcomes covered in this Assignment:
The aim of this deliverable is twofold: Firstly to develop technological foundations in Distributed Systems
and secondly to provide you feedback and develop expertise in designing and developing robust and
scalable Distributed Systems.
1

Assignment: You have to design, implement, and monitor a private cloud and then use this private
cloud to design, develop and deploy a Facebook-like application.
The assignment has a set of tasks and there is a set of activities that need to be performed in each
task.
Note 1: You will work in groups (average group size is 4) for this assignment, however, the evaluation
will be based upon individual performance. You are free to select your group members and make sure
that you work as a team and share the understanding, expertise and skills with other members of your
group.
Note 2: We will not restrict you to use a particular set of tools or technologies as far as you can justify
your choices in your architecture and Implementation. You should think like an architect and carefully
evaluate the tools and technologies to support your architecture.
Task 1: Design a Private Cloud (10 % of total module Grade)
Each group should review state of the art in cloud computing and distributed systems to understand
the background concepts and technologies. Based on this survey, you should evaluate the available
cloud computing technologies and architectures. You should propose a suitable architecture for your
private cloud and then propose an implementation plan to build this private cloud. You should have
convincing reasons to justify the choices that you have made for your architecture. Clouds are weak
in security and you should make sure that your architecture will lead to a secure solution. You should
put in place mechanisms to achieve scalability, agility and monitoring. You should also propose a
suitable network topology for your private cloud to manage traffic and provide fault tolerance. In this
task you should also have a clear understanding of the tools and technologies that you will use to
implement your private cloud.
Note 3: For your information, some of the popular cloud stacks include Apache CloudStack,
OpenStack, Vsphere, MS Azure, AWS, Nimbus, IBM Smart Cloud, Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, Eucalyptus
and OpenNebula. You may use a toolkit of your choice as far as you can justify this in your architecture.
Similarly, you may use a hypervisor of your choice, such as XEN, KVM, VMware ESX, lguest, Hyper-V
or virtual box, to virtualize system resources.
Task 2: Implement the Private Cloud (10 % of total module Grade)
In this task, each group will implement the architecture for the private cloud that has been proposed
in Task 1. To implement your private cloud, you should use the set of the tools and technologies that
you have shortlisted in Task 1. You should be able to show a basic implementation of the private cloud
in this task.
Task 3: Monitor and Demonstrate the Private Cloud (10 % of total module Grade)
In this task, each group will monitor the private cloud that they have produced in Task 2. This should
enable the private cloud to provide new services quickly and elegantly. This should also enable new
virtual machines to be provisioned and decommissioned with minimal human intervention. You
should provide a monitoring service that can monitor the computing, storage and network resources
in your private cloud and can provide information about performance, availability and scalability of
resources. You should use suitable monitoring tools to implement the monitoring features. You may
use a monitoring tool of your choice.
2

Note 4: Cloud Watch, Nagios, Ganglia, NMS, OPNET, Open Nebula are a few examples of monitoring
tools, however, you are free to select a tool of your choice as far as you have good reasons behind
your selection.
Note 5: Each group should setup the private cloud on a minimum number of nodes possible. You
should deploy individual services in fewest virtual machines if there are no software conflicts. There
are no additional marks for setting up a higher number of nodes in your private cloud.
Task 4 (20 % of total module Grade)
In this task, you should perform the following activities:

Design and develop a Facebook-like application using servlets, JSPs (or Google's web Toolkit)
and deploy this on the private cloud you implemented in previous tasks.

Using the application, friends in a network should be able to share resources (photos, web
pages, videos etc).

Friends in a network should be able to like/unlike their friend's resources.

Application should support a 'preferential search' mechanism where the resources with most
'likes' should appear on the top and with most unlikes should appear at the bottom of a list of
search results.

The application should also visualize the social network graph.
Feedback on your design and implementation will be provided in your tutorial sessions on November
18 and November 25, 2013.
Demonstration: December 2, 2013 (in your Tutorial Session). You should get an appointment to
demonstrate your project if you cannot show a fully developed and deployed application on December
2, 2013.
Task 5 (20 % of total module Grade)
Each student will submit a 1000 words document which should provide a critical review of your Design
and Implementation. You should present the weaknesses and strengths of your design and
implementation. You should present suggestions to improve your systems design and implementation
and give reasons on how the proposed changes will improve the functionality of system.
Deadline: January 3, 2013
Submit one electronic copy of your report onto Course Resources Submission point by the above
deadline. Please ensure that you have put a cover page showing your name and student number.
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Assessment
The deliverable will be assessed on the following criteria:
a) Accuracy: Completeness and correctness of the system and application functionality i.e. does
it incorporate all the major requirements described for Tasks 1, 2 and 3?
b) Objectivity: Design and performance of the application in Task 1, 2 and 3. i.e. does your
application follow the distributed systems principles and does it perform well?
c) Brevity: Do the points raised in your reflection summary in Task 4 present a critical reflection
of the strengths and weaknesses of your design and implementation in 1000 words?
d) Structure: Does your summary in Task 4 represent an unbiased synopsis of the project design
and implementation?
The university of Derby guidelines for grading will be followed for marking this assignment. These are
reproduced here for your convenience. The assessment criteria will be further explained in the
assignment brief in the class when the assignment is released.
Grade
Element
Descriptor
Class
Accuracy
The work is exceptional in that it is logically presented and
error-free. It is creative and illustrates a thoroughly in-depth
understanding of content as well as issues and problems.
Objectivity
The work shows an exceptional, critical engagement with
complex ideas and concepts. There is an outstanding
appreciation of all of the relevant competing perspectives.
Brevity
The work shows an exceptional level of evaluation and
illustrates incisive conclusions based on that evaluation.
Structure
The work is communicated with an exceptional degree of
authority that comes close to that expected of a professional in
the discipline.
Accuracy
The work is excellent in that it is logically presented and almost
error-free. It illustrates an in-depth understanding of content as
well as issues and problems. There is evidence of extensive
reading and synthesis of mostly primary research literature.
Objectivity
The work shows an excellent, critical engagement with complex
ideas and concepts. There is an excellent appreciation of almost
all of the relevant competing perspectives.
Brevity
The work shows an advanced level of evaluation and illustrates
some solution-focused conclusions based on that evaluation.
90
89
80
4
FIRST
100

Accuracy
The work is extremely good in that it is logically presented and
reasonably error-free. It illustrates an advanced understanding
of content as well as issues and problems. There is evidence of
some reading and synthesis of primary research literature.
Objectivity
The work shows an extremely good, critical engagement with
complex ideas and concepts. There is an extremely good
appreciation of almost all of the relevant competing
perspectives.
Brevity
The work shows an extremely good level of evaluation and
illustrates a few solution-focused conclusions based on that
evaluation.
Structure
The work is communicated with an extremely good degree of
authority that sometimes comes reasonably close to that
expected of a professional in the discipline.
Accuracy
The work is very good in that it is mainly logically presented and
reasonably error-free. It illustrates a good understanding of
content as well as issues and problems. There is evidence of
some reading of primary research literature.
Objectivity
The work shows a very good, critical engagement with complex
ideas and concepts. There is a very good appreciation of some
of the relevant competing perspectives.
Brevity
The work shows a very good level of evaluation and, perhaps,
illustrates a few solution-focused conclusions based on that
evaluation.
Structure
The work is communicated with an occasional glimpse of
authority that comes reasonably close to that expected of a
professional in the discipline.
79
70
69
60
59
Accuracy
The work is of a good standard in that there is an attempt to
present it logically and it is reasonably error-free. It illustrates a
good understanding of content as well as issues and problems.
There is a little evidence of reading of primary research
literature.
5
SECOND DIV 1
The work is communicated with an excellent degree of
authority that comes reasonably close to that expected of a
professional in the discipline.
SECOND DIV 2
Structure

Brevity
The work shows a fairly good level of evaluation and, perhaps,
illustrates a few solution-focused conclusions based on that
evaluation.
Structure
The work is communicated without very much authority. It
requires development to come close to that expected of a
professional in the discipline.
Accuracy
Demonstrates a satisfactory level of knowledge, but with little
evidence of reading of primary research literature.
Objectivity
The work has a fair level of critical engagement with complex
ideas and concepts, but here is a little appreciation of the
relevant competing perspectives.
Brevity
The work shows a fair level of evaluation but rarely illustrates
any solution-focused conclusions based on that evaluation.
Structure
Although soundly presented, the work lacks authority. Due to
some weaknesses in style, it does not come at all close to that
expected of a professional in the discipline.
Accuracy
The work is limited in that it is not logically presented and has
errors. It illustrates little understanding of content as well as
issues and problems. There is little evidence of any reading of
primary research literature.
Objectivity
The work lacks much critical engagement with any ideas and
concepts. There may be virtually no appreciation of the
relevant competing perspectives.
Brevity
The work shows inadequate evaluation and does not refer to
any solution-focused conclusions based on that evaluation.
Structure
The work is communicated in an unacceptable way. It is far
from that expected of a professional in the discipline.
Accuracy
The work is poor and has a number of errors. It illustrates
virtually no understanding of content or of issues and
problems. There is almost no evidence of any reading of
primary research literature.
50
49
40
39
35
34
6
THIRD
The work has a fairly good level of critical engagement with
complex ideas and concepts. There is a fair appreciation of
some of the relevant competing perspectives.
FAIL
Objectivity

Objectivity
Brevity
The work shows virtually no evaluation and hardly refers to any
conclusions based around an evaluation.
Structure
The work is communicated very poorly. It is not to any graduate
standard.
Accuracy
The work is extremely poor and has many errors. It illustrates
no understanding of content or of issues and problems. There is
no evidence of any reading of primary research literature.
Objectivity
The work lacks any critical engagement with ideas and
concepts. There is no appreciation of the relevant competing
perspectives.
Brevity
21
The work lacks critical engagement with ideas and concepts.
There is almost no appreciation of the relevant competing
perspectives.
The work shows no evaluation and does not refer to any
conclusions based around an evaluation.
Structure
The work is incoherent and may be scant or severely underlength.
20
5
4
Nothing of merit in submitted work.
1
Where no work has been submitted the NS notation will apply.
Z
Z designates work where an academic offence has occurred or
been suspected.
(0)
WARNING
Each summary must be written in your own words. Do not copy fully or partially the article’s
abstract. Any summary that is found to be mainly re-using the article’s sentences will be penalised
and it can be given a mark of 0.
Copying sentences, paragraphs, sections word by word or diagrams and pictures from documents
which belong to other people including your classmates is called plagiarism. Every document deemed
to contain copied material will incur severe penalties in marking. It can be given a total mark of 0. To
avoid this you must write the ideas you found in other documents in your own words. If in doubt as
to what constitutes plagiarism please come and see me.
Dr. Ashiq Anjum
November 4, 2013
7