CS ATLAS A map of computing

Domain 13 —

Distributed Systems & Frontiers

6 topics1970 — 2008
1970Bioinformatics1978Distributed Systems1981Quantum Computing1998Consensus Algorithms2006Cloud Computing2008Blockchain & Bitcoin

Chronology — 28 entries

Chronology

Every milestone in this domain, ordered by date. An event shared by several topics is counted once.

1970Needleman–WunschDynamic programming for biological sequence alignment.Bioinformatics
1977Sanger sequencingWhere DNA sequencing begins.Bioinformatics
1978Logical clocksCausality and partial order.Distributed Systems
1981Feynman's idea of quantum simulationThe starting thought of quantum computing.Quantum Computing
1982The Byzantine generals problemAgreement with faulty nodes.Distributed Systems
1985The FLP impossibility resultThe limit of consensus in asynchronous systems.Distributed Systems
1985The quantum Turing machineDeutsch's model.Quantum Computing
1989Paxos is writtenLamport's consensus algorithm.Consensus Algorithms
1990The Human Genome ProjectLarge-scale collaboration.Bioinformatics
1994Shor's algorithmQuantum factoring and discrete logarithms.Quantum Computing
1996Grover's algorithmA quadratic speed-up for search.Quantum Computing
1998Paxos is publishedThe paper appears nine years late.Consensus Algorithms
2000The CAP theoremConsistency, availability, partition tolerance.Distributed Systems
2001The human genome draftSequence data explodes.Bioinformatics
2006AWS S3 / EC2Public cloud goes commercial.Cloud Computing
2008Google App EngineAn early PaaS.Cloud Computing
2008The Bitcoin whitepaperPermissionless consensus.Blockchain & Bitcoin
2009The genesis blockThe Bitcoin network starts.Blockchain & Bitcoin
2010OpenStackThe open-source cloud platform.Cloud Computing
2013DockerThe container becomes the unit of development and delivery.Cloud Computing
2013EthereumSmart contracts.Blockchain & Bitcoin
2014RaftDesigned for understandability.Consensus Algorithms
2014etcd adopts RaftThe configuration backbone of Kubernetes.Consensus Algorithms
2014KubernetesContainers get a de facto orchestrator.Cloud Computing
2015Ethereum mainnet launchesA programmable blockchain.Blockchain & Bitcoin
2019Quantum supremacyThe Sycamore sampling experiment.Quantum Computing
2020AlphaFold 2A breakthrough in protein structure prediction.Bioinformatics
2022The MergeEthereum moves from proof of work to proof of stake.Blockchain & Bitcoin

Curriculum

Courses and labs

Which university courses this domain usually maps to, and whether the practical work is a standalone project course or an in-class lab.

Standalone lab course / project

Graduate labs are the most demanding: you must pass consistency checks under a fault-injecting test framework.

Courses

Distributed Systems (elective/graduate)Parallel ComputingIntroduction to Quantum Computing (elective)

Open courses

  • MIT 6.5840 Distributed Systems
  • Stanford CS 149 Parallel Computing

What the labs look like

  • The four 6.5840 labs

    MIT: MapReduce, Raft, KV Raft, sharded KV — each with fault-injection tests

  • Parallel computing labs

    CS149 / 15-418: SIMD, OpenMP, CUDA, optimising step by step towards peak

  • Quantum computing labs

    Implement Deutsch–Jozsa and Grover in Qiskit and compare with the classical cost