Big Data Systems

2026-2027, Semester A

School of Computer Science and AI
Tel Aviv University

Course Information

Course Staff

  • Rubi Boim
  • Sapir Aviv (TA) - sapiraviv AT mail.tau.ac.il

Course Goal

The course covers the architecture and design of modern big data systems from a data modeling and data management perspectives. Topics includes centralized vs distributed data systems, NoSQL and in particular wide-column database systems and Cassandra, storage strategies, denormalization modeling, stream processing, data warehouse and more.
The goal of the course is to provide the theoretical as well as the practical hands on knowledge required for designing and developing internet scale based data applications.

Course Format

The class meets once a week for a 3 hours lecture.
There will be 2-3 homework assignments (in pairs, some of which will involve programming) - 45% of the final grade.
Final exam - 55% of the final grade.

Course Requirements

  • Data structures (0368-2158) or Data structures and Algorithms (0512-2510)

Course Schedule and Slides

* tentative

# Date Topics Material Notes
1 20.10.2026 Introduction                                                                                                                        
- 28.10.2026 No class this week (local elections)
2 03.11.2026 Relational DB
3 10.11.2026 Relational data modeling HW#1 distributed
4 17.11.2026 Distributed DB, CAP theorem, NoSQL
5 24.11.2026 Dynamo HW#1 due
6 01.12.2026 Bigtable
7 08.12.2026 Cassandra - Intro
8 15.12.2026 Cassandra - Advanced
9 22.12.2026 Cassandra - Hands on HW#2 distributed
10 29.12.2026 Data modeling in NoSQL
11 05.01.2027 Data modeling in NoSQL - Advanced HW#2 due
HW#3 distributed
12 12.01.2027 TBD (Guest Lecture)
- 19.01.2027 HW#3 due
- 02.02.2027 Final Test