2025 (Current Year) Faculty Courses School of Computing Department of Computer Science Graduate major in Computer Science
Dependable System
- Academic unit or major
- Graduate major in Computer Science
- Instructor(s)
- Haruhiko Kaneko
- Class Format
- Lecture
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - Class
- -
- Course Code
- CSC.T524
- Number of credits
- 100
- Course offered
- 2025
- Offered quarter
- 4Q
- Syllabus updated
- Mar 31, 2025
- Language
- English
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
As computer systems become more complex and larger in scale, the importance of reliable system design technology is increasing. In this course, students will learn basic concepts of dependable computing, such as fault avoidance, fault tolerance, static and dynamic masks of faults, and dependability calculation methods. As elemental technologies of dependable computer system construction, students will also learn error control coding theory and cryptography.
The aim of this course is to provide a systematized knowledge of dependable techniques for computer systems and give elemental techniques for improving system dependability. Based on these, students will acquire abilities to design and construct dependable computer systems.
Course description and aims
At the end of this course, students will be able to
1) Have an understanding of basic concepts of dependable system, such as fault, error, and failure.
2) Have an understanding of reliability metrics, such as failure rate, reliability, and mean-time-to-failure, and acquire the ability to solve basic problems of reliability calculation.
3) Have an understanding of basic techniques for fault-tolerant systems, namely, static/dynamic mask and fail-safe.
4) Have an understanding of error control coding techniques, such as bit error control codes, BCH code, and Reed-Solomon code.
5） Have an understanding of the fundamentals of cryptography.
Keywords
dependable system, reliability, fault tolerance, error control coding, cryptography
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
Lecture handout will be uploaded to T2SCHOLA before each class.
Towards the end of class, students are given exercise problems related to what is taught on that day to solve.
Answers to the exercise problems are given at the beginning of the next class.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Fault, error, failure, dependability, and static mask | * Definitions of fault, error, and failure * Static mask |
| Class 2 | Reliability calculation, TMR/NMR, module synchronization | * Calculation methods of failure rate, reliability, and MTTF * TMR and NMR * Module synchronization mechanism |
| Class 3 | Dynamic mask and fail-safe techniques | * Dynamic mask and check-pointing * Fail-safe design |
| Class 4 | Error control coding 1: Galois field, linear space and sub-space, linear code | * Prime field, extension field * Linear sub-space, minimum distance * Generator matrix, parity-check matrix |
| Class 5 | Error control coding 2: Hamming code and SEC-DED code | * Hamming code * Odd-weight-column SEC-DED code |
| Class 6 | Error control coding 3: BCH code and Reed-Solomon code | * Cyclic code, generator polynomial, parity-check polynomial * BCH code, Reed-Solomon code |
| Class 7 | Symmetric-key cryptography, public-key cryptography, and post-quantum cryptography | * Examples of cryptosystem (AES, RSA) * McEliece cryptography |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
Non required
(Course materials are provided via T2SCHOLA)
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Fujiwara, Eiji. Code Design for Dependable Systems. Wiley-InterScience, ISBN: 978-0471756187.
Yoneda, Tomohiro et al., Dependable systems, Tokyo: Kyoritsu-Syuppan, ISBN: 978-4320121522. (Japanese)
Evaluation methods and criteria
Students will be assessed on their understanding of fundamental theories of dependable system, error control coding, and cryptography.
Student's course scores are assessed based on the answer to exercise problems given each lecture (70%) and term-end short paper (30%).
Related courses
- CSC.T527 ： Fault Tolerant Distributed Algorithms
Prerequisites
No prerequisites are necessary, but enrollment in the related courses is desirable.