EECS 428   Advanced Computer Networks

Fall 2006

Course Description

EECS 428 is an advanced course in Computer Networks. Its primary objective is an introduction to research in networks. The course will cover mostly topics on the design of the Internet systems, with an empahsis on network routing, transport protocols, and application protocols.

Prerequisites

EECS 325/425 or permission of instructor.

Textbooks 

Recommended: Computer Networks - A Systems Approach, Third Edition by Larry L. Peterson and Bruce S. Davie, Morgan Kaufmann, 2003

Others: Technical readings relevant to the lectures will also be provided during the semester.

Course Information

Instructor: Shudong Jin (Email: jins@case.edu)
Lecture time: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:15am; Location: Rock 306
Office hours: Tuesday & Thursday, 4:00-5:00pm; Office: Olin 502

Course Content and Requirements

Lectures will be given twice each week. Students are expected to attend all the lectures and to be responsible for all the materials covered in class. Classes missed due to reasons other than medical conditions may not be made up.

There will be semester long project. During the first 4 weeks of the semester, a topic for the project will be decided. The project can be any in computer networks, but preference will be on network layer and transport layer protocol design. The students are also required to present their project in the end of the semester. Finally a report will be submitted and the materials in the report ideally should be suitable for a workshop publication.

Each student is also required to present a research paper during the semester. The topic should be close to that of the project. Presentations will evaluated by the instructor and by other students in the class.

Grading Policy

Class participation: 20%
Midterm quiz: 10%
Paper presentation: 20%
Project and project report: 50%

Tentative Schedule

More information (lecture notes, readings) on Blackboard

08/29:    Overview of network architectures and protocols
08/31:    End-to-end argument
09/05:    Routing algorithms, autonomous systems and BGP
09/07:    Basics of queuing
09/12:    Active queue management, RED
09/14:    More queue management issues, QoS
09/19:    Traffic characterization, self-similarity
09/21:    Traffic models and tools
09/26:    Network topology characterization, power-law, etc
09/28:    Topology models and tools
10/03:    Transport protocols, TCP 3-way handshake and state transition
10/05:    TCP congestion control: slow-start, congestion avoidance, timeout
10/10:    More on slow-start, measurement-based improvement
10/12:    TCP throughput modeling, TFRC
10/17:    TCP-friendly protocols: window-based
10/19:    Transport protocols in high-speed networks
10/24:    Fall break
10/26:    TCP Vegas and FAST TCP
10/31:    Peer-to-peer architectures, searching and replications
11/02:    Consistent hashing, Chord DHT
11/07:    Peer-to-peer streaming
11/09:    Multimedia applications
11/14:    Quiz (no lecture today)
11/16:    Traffic classification
11/21:    Topics on future Internet design
11/23:    Thanksgiving
11/28:    Student presentations: En Cheng, Hyun Kim
11/30:    Student presentations: van Anh Tran, Mohammed Aloqlah
12/05:    Student presentation: Steven Buchi, Nahal Geshnizjani
12/07:    Student presentation: Michael Jolson, Tu Ouyang