Template (Specialised)¶

Assignment¶

CO3404 Assignment Brief Notes
CO3404 Assignment 58

Exam (1^st Attempt was Resit) (05-08-2026)¶

Went well, despite so so so many diagram questions. I missed a single question which was about elastic compute.

Lectures¶

Semester 1¶

CO3404 Lecture 1 - Introduction To Distributed Systems ✔️
CO3404 Lecture 2 - Introduction Continued ✔️
CO3404 Lecture 3 - REST & Intro to NodeJS ✔️
CO3404 Lecture 4 - JavaScript Functions (Same Week)
CO3404 Lecture 5 - Promises, Middleware & Databases (Same Week)
CO3404 Lecture 6 - Adding a Database to the Stack
CO3404 Lecture 7 - Docker & Containerisation
CO3404 Lecture 8 - Docker Volumes & Database Container
CO3404 Lecture 9 - Asynchronous Messaging with RabbitMQ
CO3404 Lecture 10 - KONG API Gateway

Semester 2¶

CO3404 Lecture 11 - Event-Driven Architecture RabbitMQ & Kafka
CO3404 Lecture 12 - Subnets & Baston Hosts
CO3404 Lecture 13 - Infrastructure as Code
CO3404 Lecture 14 - Security - TLS
CO3404 Lecture 15 - TLS Operation & Swagger
CO3404 Lecture 16 - Authentication and Authorisation
CO3404 Lecture 17 - (MongoDB) & (System Scaling & Resilience)
CO3404 Lecture 18 - Kubernetes
CO3404 Lecture 19 - Revision

Labs¶

While formal labs are not provided, independent work is imperative for this module as work is provided weekly on blackboard.
- Theory is discussed in the first lecture.
- The theory is demonstrated in the demos lecture.
- Exercises or activities provided can be found at the end of the lecture notes.

Demo Videos and Instructions¶

CO3404 - Demo 1
CO3404 - Demo 2
CO3404 - Demo 3
CO3404 - Demo 4
[[CO3404 - Demo 5]]
[[CO3404 - Demo 6]]
[[CO3404 - Demo 7]]
[[CO3404 - Demo 8]]

Revision List Provided for Exam¶

Cloud service models Scalability, resilience and high-availability ✔️
Monolith (e.g. 3-tier) ✔️
Distributed systems (e.g. microservices) pros and cons of each ✔️
What is SQL injection and how you protect against it ✔️
Security properties & operation of TLS. e.g., what crypto features does it employ to secure data in transit ✔️
how does it do it API operation and documentation ✔️
What is a Bastion host (jump-box) and what security benefits does it offer ✔️
Benefits of using Terraform as opposed to other approaches to build infrastructure e.g. using the portal ✔️
Pros and cons of event patterns ✔️
Pros and cons of message patterns ✔️
Benefits and use-case for Docker volumes and bind mounts ✔️
Be able to explain a section of code from: Docker compose, dockerfile, Terraform, Kubernetes
Kubernetes architecture and components

Block 1 — System Architecture & Cloud Models¶

Lectures 1, 2, 17

Monolith (3-tier) vs microservices: pros/cons, ease of deployment vs complexity, fault isolation
Cloud service models: IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS/DBaaS — one example of each
Vertical vs horizontal scaling (on-prem and cloud), autoscaling (scale sets / auto scaling groups)
Load balancers: why needed, distribution algorithms (e.g. round robin)
Availability Zones, regions, VNets/subnets spanning AZs
Difference between high availability and resilience
Elastic compute: virtualisation, auto-scaling, load balancing, containerisation, orchestration

Block 2 — Security & Networking¶

Lectures 12, 14, 15, 16

SQL injection: how the attack works (mechanism), how parameterised queries/prepared statements stop it
TLS: symmetric vs asymmetric crypto, certificates, handshake steps, what TLS actually secures (confidentiality, integrity, authentication)
Bastion host / jump-box: what it is, why it reduces attack surface, typical placement in a subnet diagram
(Check lecture 16 too — Authentication and Authorisation often pairs with this block)

Block 3 — Containerisation & Orchestration¶

Lectures 7, 8, 18

Docker volumes vs bind mounts: difference, use-case for each (e.g. persistent DB storage vs local dev file sharing)
Be able to read and explain a Dockerfile line-by-line
Be able to read and explain a docker-compose.yml section
Kubernetes architecture: control plane (API server, scheduler, etcd, controller manager) vs node components (kubelet, kube-proxy, container runtime)
Be able to read and explain a Kubernetes manifest (pods, services, deployments)

Block 4 — Infrastructure as Code¶

Lecture 13

Terraform benefits vs manual portal provisioning: version control, repeatability, drift detection, faster rebuild after failure
Be able to read and explain a .tf file section (resources, providers, variables)

Block 5 — Messaging & Event-Driven Patterns¶

Lectures 9, 11

Message pattern pros/cons: async decoupling, queueing (RabbitMQ)
Message vs event — the core distinction (command/intent vs "a fact that happened")
Event pattern pros/cons: pub/sub, event streams, eventual consistency (RabbitMQ & Kafka)
Be ready to compare RabbitMQ vs Kafka use-cases if asked

Block 6 — APIs & Documentation¶

Lectures 3, 10, 15

REST API operation: verbs, statelessness, resources
Swagger/OpenAPI: what it documents and why it matters for consumers
KONG API Gateway — role/purpose (came up in lecture 10, worth a quick pass)

Exam Revision¶