Faculty active in the research areas of Operating Systems and Distributed Systems in the Computer Science Department investigate algorithms, design principles, and engineering techniques for developing the software necessary to run modern computer systems. Operating systems research focuses on system software targeting a single machine or physical computational device while distributed systems efforts study the use of multiple computers interconnected by a network to implement coherent, secure, scalable, and reliable systems. Current research foci include cloud computing, distributed database and "Big Data," operating system virtualization, programming languages and runtime environments for distributed systems, machine learning and statistical techniques for large-scale analytics, social networks, and data-center management systems. Researchers in these areas employ collaborative and multi-technological approaches often combining skills and research results from multiple disciplines in a team setting. Together, faculty and students develop solutions to complex problems that lead to a transformative impact on an increasingly information-centric and data-dependent society.