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CS 451Data-Intensive Distributed Computing

Units
0.50
Faculty
Mathematics
Subject
Computer Science

When it runs

  1. F24
  2. W25
  3. S25
  4. F25
  5. W26
  6. S26
  7. F26
  8. W27
  9. S27

Ran in 5 of the last 7 terms. Winter 2027: scheduled, 3 lecture sections. Spring 2027: schedule not out yet.

Introduces students to infrastructure for data-intensive computing, with a focus on abstractions, frameworks, and algorithms that allow developers to distribute computations across many machines. Topics include core concepts (partitioning, replication, locality, consistency), computational models (MapReduce, dataflows, stream processing, bulk-synchronous parallel), and applications.

Prerequisites

Antirequisites

None listed.

Leads to

No course lists it as a requisite.

Fall 2026 sections

Enrolment from UW Open Data, which can trail Quest by up to two days. Instructors and rooms: Schedule of Classes.
SectionClassEnrolledMeets
LEC 001632672 / 75TTh 10:00–11:20

Winter 2027 sections

Enrolment from UW Open Data, which can trail Quest by up to two days. Instructors and rooms: Schedule of Classes.
SectionClassEnrolledMeets
LEC 00159660 / 90TTh 10:00–11:20
LEC 00261890 / 90TTh 16:00–17:20
LEC 701233384 / 9999Online or by arrangement

Resources

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Reviewed on UW Flow

85% liked it76% easy83% useful

From 47 ratings and 17 comments on UW Flow. The most helpful comments, quoted as written, without names. Read them all on UW Flow.

  • Very industry relevant course. Talked about many useful and interesting things about big data engineering (spark, inverted index, ETL, streaming etc). I actually got to use map reduce to solve an open interview question. The interviewer was impressed and I got a job.
    Just hope we get more courses like this. Feels some cool topics are rushed (like Kafka, data warehouse...). Would be great to expand this course into more.
    Assignments were 70% (commonly full mark). If you can't go to lecture you can watch Ali's YouTube.
    If you already have the prepreq, I 100% recommend this course

    Mar 2024 · liked it · 1 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • The ideal course for SWEs working in big tech. It covers a broad range of topics like data pipelines, machine learning, distributed systems, databases and more. Answers all the questions that I was asking myself at my first Cali co-op; extremely useful. Also the assignments are light and you can look them up on github if you need.

    Dec 2021 · liked it · 1 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • easy

    May 2019 · liked it · 1 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • The assignments were really simple and didn't require much effort. The few instances where there was some difficulty, the professor usually just gives a fairly rigorous explanation of how to implement it during class.
    The content itself is all over the place, so it feels like your understanding of all the course content is kiddie-pool deep.
    After the second week most people stopped showing up to lectues and just read the notes, which are self-explanatory.

    May 2026 · didn’t like itOn UW FlowRemove this

  • assignments worth 60%, final 40%. easy 90+ if you put in the time. assignments do take some time so good to start early. final was also not that difficult

    Apr 2026 · liked itOn UW FlowRemove this

Discussed on r/uwaterloo

198 posts and comments in 161 threads mention CS 451, February 2016 to December 2024. Quoted word for word, newest first; each reply sits under the post and the comment that started its branch. Search r/uwaterloo for newer posts.

Fall 2024

Upper year CS courses (or electives) that release assignments in advance 5 points, 5 comments

“Hi, I am looking to take a few courses over a summer co-op, however it begins in June. To ease my workload, I want to take courses where it is possible to work ahead on them during May before my job …”

u/OrganizationNaive452: “… cs451 or cs444 off the top of my head lol”

u/OrganizationNaive452: “oh my bad! I believe CS444 is released all at once. Courses like CS451 can have assignments finished before they're released b/c testcases and assignments are same as the previous term. Not sure what's offered in spring, but maybe cs456 is similar.”

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CS 451 vs 454 4 points, 1 comment

u/Cold-Place3864: “Choosing between these two as I can't fit both in my schedule, which would you say is better to learn distributed systems in general and would you recommend taking both of them or would one of the two suffice for sufficient distributed systems knowledge. …”

u/Rarag: “The two courses are pretty different - CS451 assumes you have frameworks for distributed processing (mapreduce, spark) and teaches you how to use them for different applications (mostly text processing). …”

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Most interesting upper-year CS classes 13 points, 8 comments

“Rising 4B CS here. Currently on my schedule I have 488 (Graphics) since I’ve been meaning to take that since like 2nd year and CS 492 since I feel like it’d be fun to talk about the social …”

u/_Linkin_Park_: “CS 451 is very interesting and easy. You get to make friends as well and class size is small too.”

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Spring 2024

Most Useful CS course you took in your undergraduate career. 7 points, 10 comments

“Hello, this question is targeted more towards alumni or graduate/4th/5th year students but I was wondering which CS course in your undergrad you found was the most useful. …”

u/sStinkySsoCks: “… Very insightful cs 451 (or cs 431 if you can’t get permission. Equally useful if not more practical cut it uses pyspark instead of scala). 💯 recommend Then maybe take AI/distributed systems? Those course are useful but not that high quality. …”

u/NeighborhoodDizzy831: “In second-year rn, would CS 451 be useful for SWE or is it more so for data-heavy jobs?”

u/Kassaking777: “… I think the concepts you learn from CS451 would be helpful. So if you want to pursue a top coop, or prepare for your future career path, I would recommend CS451. …”

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Winter 2024

Check it elsewhere for Fall 2026

Calendar versions

Undergraduate Calendar