This course covers core concepts of concurrency control—threads, locks, transactions, and crash recovery—in the first half, then shifts to distributed systems topics like network models, clocks, replication, consensus, and fault tolerance. It lists lecture topics, objectives, prerequisites, and recommended readings for a Part IB CST Michaelmas module led by Dr. Martin Kleppmann.

Maintaining consistency in a system comprised of separate databases can be challenging, particularly in the absence of transactions. The article discusses the importance of defining a system of record versus a system of reference and emphasizes the Write Last, Read First principle to ensure safety properties like consistency and traceability in financial transactions.