COMP/ELEC 529 - Computer Network Protocols and Systems
Rice University
Fall 2004

Instructor
Prof. T. S. Eugene Ng
Office: Duncan Hall 3005
Email: eugeneng at cs.rice.edu

Teaching Assistant
Andreas Haeberlen
Office: Duncan Hall 3001
Email: ahae at cs.rice.edu

Meeting
1:00pm - 2:20pm, Tuesdays & Thursdays
Room: MART 104 (Martel College, Building 31 on Rice campus map)

Course Overview

Computer networking is a rapidly evolving discipline with many exciting opportunities. Challenges that arise in networking and particularly in the Internet tend to be truly global problems that impact millions of users. However, existing solutions to many of the classical challenges (e.g. routing, congestion control, quality-of-service, management) remain unsatisfactory, while new challenges (e.g. worm, denial-of-service, peer-to-peer) are emerging as people continue to use the Internet in ways the original designers did not anticipate in the 70's and 80's. In the long run, coping with the complexity of the Internet may become the ultimate challenge.

The goals of this graduate level course are to provide students with a proper grounding in the basic concepts and seminal work in computer network protocols and systems, and to introduce students to some of the most exciting recent research developments. The basic concepts covered include network architecture, switching, routing, congestion control, and quality-of-service. The advanced research topics will focus on network structural measurement and modeling, network scaling and management, overlay networking and peer-to-peer systems, network security, and new network architectures.

Course Format

The course will consist of lectures, paper readings and reviews, and a group research project. The lectures will begin with a broad overview of the basic concepts in computer networking and gradually transition to the advanced topics. Each lecture will be based on one or two research papers. Students must read the assigned papers and submit paper reviews before each lecture. Students will also form teams of two, each team will tackle a well-defined research project during the semester. A list of suggested project topics will be provided. All projects are subjected to approval by the instructor. The project component will include a short written project proposal, a short mid-term project presentation, a final project poster presentation and a final project report.

Prerequisites

Undergraduate experience with operating systems, computer networking, and algorithms is required.

Grading

Paper reviews
 30%
Project proposal, presentations, and final report
 60%
(Project grading breakdown: proposal 5%, mid-term presentation 20%, final presentation 25%, final report 50%)
Class participation
 10%

Writing and Submitting Review

All students must read the assigned papers and write reviews for the papers before each lecture. Email the reviews to the instructor (eugeneng at cs.rice.edu) prior to each lecture and the reviews will be posted on the course web page. Periodically, the instructor will evaluate a random subset of the reviews and provide feedback and grades to students.

Do not send reviews as email attachments.  Please send one review in plain text per email in the body of the email message. In your email, please use the following format for the subject line to enable some automation:

comp529review:[PaperID]

Recognizing that not everyone has had experience writing reviews, the reviews on or before 9/30/2004 will be graded on a credit/no-credit basis.

A review should summarize the paper sufficiently to demonstrate your understanding, should point out the paper's contributions, strengths as well as weaknesses. Think in terms of what makes good research? What qualities make a good paper? What are the potential future impacts of the work? Note that there is no right or wrong answer to these questions. A review's quality will mainly depend on its thoughtfulness. Restating the abstract/conclusion of the paper will not earn a top grade.

Project

The course project is intended to be a mini-research project that allows each student team (2 people) to explore an aspect of computer networking that is of interest during the course of the semester. Each student team will most likey work on a different topic. There will be three milestones in the project component: (1) project selection and proposal, (2) mid-term presentation, (3) final poster presentation and report. Further details will be provided during class.

Reference Textbook

 Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, 3rd Edition
by Larry Peterson, Bruce S. Davie
 Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 3 edition (May, 2003)
 ISBN: 155860832X
Schedule

Under construction, subject to changes. The reading list with links to papers is here.

Class
 Date Topic
 Primary paper(s)
 Other paper(s) (no review needed)
 Your reviews
 Notes
 Remarks
1
 8/24
 Overview
 None assigned

lecture1.ppt
2
 8/26
 Network architectures [Zim80],[SRC84]
[Zim80],[SRC84]
 lecture2.ppt
3
 8/31
 No class



No class
4
 9/2
 No class



No class
5
 9/7
 TCP/IP
 [CK74],[Cla88]
 [Pos81a],[Pos81b]
 [CK74],[Cla88]
 lecture3.ppt
 Suggested project topics out
6
 9/9
 LAN: Ethernet
 None assigned

lecture4.ppt
7
 9/14
 WAN: SONET/RPR
 [WB90],[BR00] [BC89],[Els04]
 [WB90],[BR00]
 lecture5.ppt
see also this and this
8
 9/16
 Intra-domain routing
 None assigned

lecture6.ppt
9
 9/21
 Inter-domain routing
 [LAB+00],[GSW02] [S+99],[LMJ97],[Pax96] [LAB+00],[GSW02]
 lecture7.ppt
10
 9/23
 Congestion control I
 [Jac88],[CJ89] [RCJ88],[Jac90] [Jac88],[CJ89] lecture8.ppt
 Project proposals due
11
 9/28
 Congestion control II [FJ93],[LAJ+03]
[FJ93],[LAJ+03]
 lecture9.ppt
12
 9/30
 Quality of service, Intserv
 [DKS89],[SSZ98] [PG93]
 [DKS89],[SSZ98]
 lecture10.ppt
13
 10/5
 Quality of service, Intserv
[SZN97], [Z+93]
 [BZ96]
 [SZN97],[Z+93]

14
 10/7
 Quality of service, Diffserv
 [SZ99]
[SZ99]

15
 10/12
 Mid-term recess




16
 10/14
 Topology measurement  & modeling
 [FFF99], [LBC+03]
[FFF99],[LBC+03]

17
 10/19
 Topology measurement & modeling
 [LAW+04], [NZ02]
[LAW+04],[NZ02]
 lecture14.ppt
18
 10/21
 Mid-term project presentations



Mid-term project presentations
19
 10/26
 Circuit switching [MMZ02], [MM03]
[MMZ02], [MM03]

20
 10/28 Multicast [DC88], [F+95]
[DC88], [F+95]

21
 11/2
 Overlay networks I [ABK+01], [CRS+02]
[ABK+01], [CRS+02]

22
 11/4
 Overlay networks II
 [QYZ+03], [CDH+02]
[QYZ+03], [CDH+02]

23
 11/9
 Peer-to-peer systems [CDK+03], [SAZ+02]
[CDK+03], [SAZ+02]

24
 11/11
 Network Management [FGL+01], [FRT02]
[FT00]
 [FGL+01], [FRT02]

25
 11/16
 Network security
 [SWK+00], [ARW03]
[SWK+00], [ARW03]

26
 11/18
 Network security
 [SPW02], [MSV+03]
 [S91]
 [SPW02], [MSV+03] lecture22.ppt
27
 11/23
 New network architectures
 [Cla00], [CWS+02]
[Cla00], [CWS+02]

28
 11/25
 Thanksgiving holiday



Thanksgiving holiday
29
 11/30
 New network architectures
 [Wet99]
[Wet99]

30
 12/2
 Project presentations



Project presentations

12/9
 Final project reports due



Final project reports due