CS 6650 — Building Scalable Distributed Systems
4 semester hoursGraduateLabusually offered: fall, springBostonOakland, CAOnlineSeattle, WASilicon Valley, CAVancouver, CanadaHybridLive CastOnlineTraditional
Covers the essential elements of distributed, concurrent systems and builds upon that knowledge with engineering principles and practical experience with state-of-the-art technologies and methods for building scalable systems. Scalability is an essential quality of internet-facing systems and requires specialized skills and knowledge to build systems that scale at low cost.
Offering history
| Term | Sections | Enrolled | Capacity | Full | Open seats/section |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2023 | 3 | 136 | 177 | 77% | 13.7 |
| Spring 2024 | 4 | 152 | 201 | 76% | 12.3 |
| Fall 2024 | 2 | 109 | 124 | 88% | 7.5 |
| Spring 2025 | 4 | 198 | 214 | 93% | 4.0 |
| Fall 2025 | 5 | 222 | 264 | 84% | 8.4 |
| Spring 2026 | 6 | 232 | 276 | 84% | 7.3 |
Snapshots from scheduled scrapes — not live seat availability. "Full" can exceed 100% when sections over-enroll.
Meeting times
Share of recent sections by weekday: M 4% · T 9% · W 12% · Th 12% · F 24%
Common patterns: async (43% of sections), F (20% of sections), W (12% of sections), R (12% of sections), T (5% of sections), TF (4% of sections) — in patterns, R means Thursday
Professors
Fall
- Kanaka Saripalli (29% of students) · reviews
- Monica Coady (22% of students) · reviews
- Ian Gorton (15% of students) · reviews
- Vishal Rajpal (13% of students) · reviews
Spring
- Monica Coady (30% of students) · reviews
- Vishal Rajpal (21% of students) · reviews
- Martin Schedlbauer (16% of students) · reviews
- Geoffrey Phipps (12% of students) · reviews
Percentages are each professor's average share of the season's enrolled students in recent terms.
Links
Official catalog (CS course descriptions) · Student reviews on RateMyHusky · All CS courses · Plan it at numap.app