Potpourri-1 Potpourri 1. (Answer True/False with justification) Your friend is submitting a map reduce job. Her input data is split into 100 shards. Ignoring set up time, the actual time for the map function to execute on an input shard is T. To speed up the map phase, she asks for 200 nodes. With this allocation, the map phase on the entire input will complete in T/2 time units. 

Failures_and_Recovery_3 LRVM Give one pro and one con for the “no_flush” mode in end_transaction.

Potpourri-4 Potpourri 4.  (Answer True/False with justification) An application using the built-in recovery management of Quicksilver would incur additional communication overhead. 

Potpourri-3 Potpourri  (Answer True/False with justification) RioVista’s use of battery-backed file cache enables it to resume transactions from the exact point of failure after a crash, without any data loss or state inconsistency. 

Failures_and_Recovery_6c Quicksilver The context for this question is same as previous. You are designing a distributed database system on top of the Quicksilver operating system. The system allows clients to perform “read” and “write” operations on data stored across multiple nodes. Each operation generates a transaction tree for recovery purposes. For persistent changes made during a “write” operation, what cleanup protocol would be appropriate? Why?

Internet_Scale_Computing_4 CDN In principle, the Coral system’s key-based routing serves the same fundamental purpose as traditional DHT routing: enabling a source node to locate and communicate with the appropriate destination node. Given this, what specific problem does Coral’s key-based routing address that traditional DHT routing does not? 

Internet_Scale_Computing_1a Giant Scale Services You are deploying a large-scale machine learning model for inference in a cloud data center. The model is 960 GB in size and can be broken down into 8 GB chunks that must be executed in a pipelined manner. Each chunk takes 0.8 ms to process. The available machines each have 8 GB of RAM. You are required to serve 600,000 queries per second. Assume there is perfect compute and communication overlap, and no additional intermediate memory usage during execution. What is the minimum number of machines required to support this throughput? You are free to assume pipelined execution of chunks for this.

22.    Which of the following statements is CORRECT? I. One advantage of dividends over share repurchases is that dividends provide financial managers with more flexibility.II. Despite several advantages of share repurchases, dividends remain the dominant form of shareholder payout.III. After announcing a share repurchase program, a firm is not required to repurchase any of the shares it intended to buy back.

Simon Software Co. is trying to estimate its optimal capital structure.  Right now, Simon has a capital structure that consists of 0% debt and 100% equity, based on market values.  The risk-free rate is 6% and the market risk premium, RM – Rrf, is 5%.  Currently the company’s cost of equity, which is based on the CAPM, is 12% and its tax rate is 40%.  What would be Simon’s estimated cost of equity if it were to change its capital structure to 50% debt and 50% 

19.    Which of the following improve(s) the corporate governance of a firm? I. A larger fraction of independent directors on the boardII. Having the CEO serve as the chairman of the board of directorsIII. Block ownership by an active institutional investor who is trying to maximize shareholder wealth