Internetworking Arch. & Protocols: Project
Introduction
The Internet performs many important functions
and provides a wide range of important (and increasingly critical)
services . Internet functions are mostly concerned with providing
for reliable and timely delivery of "bit buckets" across a network made of
up of heterogenesous physical components. Routing, naming, and congestion
control are examples of such functions. Internet services (such as the web,
p2p systems, e-mail) build upon the basic functions to provide value to
network users.
The Internet should be viewed as a continuously eveloving
enterprise. The functions it provides and the services it performs today are
the result of at least five decades of evolution. It is important
also to realize that the evolution also continues and, as a result, the
Internet of the future is likely to be substantially different from
the Internet of today.
The Internet as we know it today is
one instantiation of a wide-area network.
It is, therefore, important to realize that the exact state of the
Internet functions and services today is the result of a multitude
of low- and high-level design decisions .
The reasoning for the technical design choice made in various cases
varies. Some decisions were deliberated over and have some technical foundation.
(e.g., the decision to fragment and re-assemble only at end systems).
Other design decisions were made because they were the fastest to accomplish
a higher level objective and not because they were the best possible
solution (e.g., the decision to use TCP for the Web).
Many (if not most) of the design decisions were dictated by others made
earlier. Also because transmission and computing technology has advanced,
the reason for many design decisions is no longer applicable.
In the early days of the Internet, it was possible to change designs
with impunity. With the Internet today serving an infrastructure function
and with its tremendous global scale, changes range from being very difficult to basically impossible. For example the transport protocol was changed from NCP to
TCP in relatively short time for the entire Internet in the early 80's.
Such a transition is basically unthinkable today.
We argue that a true understanding of the Internet and its future
should be undertaken in this historical and evolutionary context. This project
aims to provide an opportunity for students to study the Internet
from this perspective.
What you will have to do
In groups of 3 or 4 (depending on the size of the class) you will
- Pick a particular Internet function or service (e.g., routing,
content distribution, naming, hour-glass architecture, packet-switching ...).
- Describe in concise term a snapshot of the sate of this function or
service today.
- Provide an extensive list of literature documenting the history and
evolution of your choice.
You will make extensive use of the GT library facilities, including
the IEEE and ACM digital libraries. You will also find other sources
on Internet history on-line including the set of Internet RFCs available
on-line.
- Develop a timeline of developments leading to the current state of affairs.
(You should go back as far as you can in time. For some technologies
you may have to go back to the 1940s or possibly earlier as some technologies
were adapted from similar ones adopted in telephone and telegraph networks).
- Identify important milestones in your timeline where decisions
were made and provide the reasoning that went along with the decision.
- Relate the historical development of your choice of topic
with possibly other developments within the Internet context
or otherwise (technical, economical, commercial).
- Attempt to define an evloutionary model and fit your understanding
of these developments in the context of this model (more on this later).
Project Deliverables and Milestones
-
Milestone 1: Team and Topic Selection: Since I would
like to have as many topics covered as possible there will be no
topic duplication allowed. Please list 3 choices in order
of preference. To avoid misinterpretation on my part please
provide a one paragraph description of what each topic means to your team
--- Due Feb. 10, 2004.
Please talk to me about your selection and team before this deadline
-
Milestone 2: Initial set of papers and on-line documents.
This initial set should contain at least 50 references with
complete bibliographical information. (include URLs if applicable).
-- Due Feb. 24, 2004
-
Milestone 3: Draft timeline along with identification of important milestones.
This should make specific reference to a (possibly revised) literature list.
-- Due March 23, 2004
-
Milestone 4: Make a 15-20 minute presentation in-class.
Your team will have to elect preferably one member to give the presentation.
You may choose to have two members give the presentation but this will
have to be orchestrated carefully to stay within the alloted time.
All presentation need to be in powerpoint and will be due April 12 by 7pm.
You will not be allowed to change your slides after this date.
I will decide on the ordering of the presentations (either randomly or
based on some useful topic progression).
-- During the last two weeks of the semester, April 13, 15, 20, 22.
-
Milestone 3: Final Report: This should include final
versions of the bibliography and timeline as well as additional
discussion that includes all the requirements described in the previous section.
Due Tuesday April 27 by 7pm.
Grading
- Milestone 1: 5%
Grade will be based on timeliness and the amount of thought taht goes intto
your identification and delineation of your choice topics.
- Milestone 2: 5%
Grade will be based on timeliness, size and relevance of literature list,
and effort expended to dig up early material relating to your topic.
- Milestone 3: 5%
Grade will be based on timeliness, clear backing of timeline with the
literature provided.
- Milestone 4: 15%
Grade will be based on adherence to time limit of presentation, quality
of material presented (how much new material we learn from your presentation),
clarity of presentation objectives and quality of delivery.
- Milestone 5: 25%
Grade will be based on timeliness, how well the report meets the requirements
stated above, quality of writing and presentation.
Possible topics
- Routing
- Transport protocols
- Congestion Control
- Packet Switching
- Network Architectures
- Wireless/Mobile Routing
- Naming
- Addressing
- Multicast
- Audio/Video Streaming
- Content Distribution
- E-mail
- Transport protocols
- Access Technology
- Your Own Topic!