CS 6380 - Computer Networks

Fall 1997

Homework Assignments

Traceroute

The traceroute manual page describes the operation of traceroute. The following are examples of running traceroute from the CoC machine forge.cc.gatech.edu:

Reading List

Consistent Overhead Byte Stuffing, S. Cheshire and M. Baker, ACM Sigcomm'97.
Solutions to Hidden Terminal Problems in Wireless Networks, C. Fullmer and J. Garcia-Luna-Aceves, ACM Sigcomm'97.
A Protocol for Efficient Transfer of Data over Fiber/Cable Systems, J. Limb and D. Sala, Proceedings of Infocom '96.
RFC 1519: Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR), V. Fuller, T. Li, J. Yu and K. Vardhan.

Course Summary

CS 6380 (Computer Networks) is the introductory graduate course in telecommunications/networking, laying the foundation for all other graduate networking courses. CS 6380 assumes no prior experience in networking; students who have previously taken a networking course may be able to skip 6380; this should be discussed with the professor. The material in 6380 is extremely broad, dealing with issues ranging from error control to end-to-end transport. A lot of material falls in between, and the course moves along quickly. In addition to graduate students in CoC, this course also attracts some ECE graduate students. The course emphasizes problem solving to make fundamental concepts concrete; leaving hands-on exposure to networking hardware and protocol development to CS 6381.

Telecommunications and networking attracts a large number of students, reflecting an increased emphasis in society on the information age. The area is of great practical importance; nearly every one of us makes use of networking on a daily basis, often without a second thought about the details of operation. One goal of the this course is to reveal the underlying principles of operation, and convince you that there is no "magic." In addition, the subject area serves to integrate a wide range of computer science (and electrical engineering) concepts, including coding, algorithms, distributed systems, mathematical performance analysis and fault tolerance.

Teaching Philosophy

The purpose of this course is for you to (1) understand the fundamental problems and solution techniques involved in networking from the data link to the transport layers, and (2) to see how these fundamental concepts are manifest in practice, via case studies of particular protocols. This is not a course about any particular protocol or networking technology (e.g., Ethernet), rather it is about the more enduring concepts that appear in networking technology (e.g., medium access control). Case studies provide an excellent opportunity to see the messiness of principles in practice. In addition, they provide the opportunity to practice a critical skill: sifting through details for the key idea. Protocols are a great example of lots of details that can obscure a core concept. I encourage (and expect) you to participate actively in the learning process. In particular, I welcome your comments and questions as we cover material in class. One-way lectures quickly becoming boring, both for you and for me. By asking lots of questions, your understanding of the material will be deepened signficantly, and the course will be much more fun!

Teaching/Learning Goals

My primary goals for this course are for you to develop the following abilities:

to correctly use the core terminology of networking (protocol, service, interface, peer-to-peer communication, layering, etc.);
to demonstrate understanding of the fundamental problems and solution techniques that arise in the data link, networking and transport layers;
to understand the details of several particular protocols, as example implementations of fundamental principles;
to propose and analyze candidate solutions, to determine if they satisfy correctness criteria;
to assess and compare solution approaches using performance evaluation techniques;
to apply basic concepts of networking in new networking contexts; (aside: re-inventing the wheel is common in networking).

Textbook

The required textbook is Computer Networks (Third Edition) by A. Tanenbaum, Prentice Hall, 1996. On-line supplements to the text (including a simulator for some of the protocols) can be found here. There are several other textbooks that cover similar material, including:

Data and Computer Communications (5th edition), W. Stallings, Prentice Hall, 1997.
Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, Peterson and Davie, Morgan Kaufmann, 1996.

Getting Help

There is one teaching assistant for this course. He will do all grading of homework assignments, and should be your first point of contact when you have questions about assignments or grading. His office hours and location will be announced in class.

Siddharth Bajaj
GCATT 2nd floor
bajaj@cc.gatech.edu
Office hours: TBA

Grading

The grading allocation is given below. The homework assignments will consist of a combination of written problems and programming problems. Knowledge of C and Unix is assumed for the programming problems. There will not be a major programming project in this course.

Homework 30%
Midterm 30%
Final 35%
Class participation 5%

Ellen Zegura

Last modified: Thu Oct 2 11:30:24 PDT 1997