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ECE/TCOM-5543: Network Design and Management
This is a graduate course in network design and management. Since we have students from various backgrounds; some students are actually working network engineers, some others have strong programming background, and yet others have strong research experience. A standard course will be difficult to satisfy everyone's interests and needs. Instead, I would try to make it a project base course and a student will try to pursue a project best interested to him or her early on.
Suggested Textbooks
Other Reference Materials
Foundations of Python Network Programming by John Goerzen
Computer Networks: Fundamental Concepts and Key Architectures by A. Leon-Garcia and I. Widjaja
Computer Networks by A.S. Tanenbaum
802.11 tutorial
RPG IV Socket Tutorial: some good explanation of Socket API
Office Hours
There are no “regular” office hours. But you are very likely to be able to find me everyday in the afternoon. You are welcome to come catch me anytime.
Course Syllabus
Introduction, Protocols and Layering
Physical and Link layers
Retransmissions, Multiple access, Switching
Network layer, Internetworking
Intra- and Inter-domain Routing
Transport layer, Reliability
Congestion Control
DNS, Web/HTTP, Content Distribution
Quality of Service and Real-time Apps
Elementary Queueing Theory
N.B. You will expect to expose to some Linux and Python. You won't become an expert on these things after this class. But it is good to get your hands dirty and play with them early.
Projects
Grading
Homework: 20%.
"Mid-term": 30%. Closed book test, and no Internet and cell-phones, but you can bring calculator and two pieces of letter-size cheat sheet
Final Project: 50%. You will need to submit a screencast/video by (tentative) May 8 midnight. The screencast/video should compose approximately a 10 minutes presentation and a 5 minute demo. You will rank each other's video. You will have to send me your ranks for the other projects by May 13 (tentatively).
Detail points of the final project will be distributed as follows:
22%: based effort point. You will score all 22% as long as you submit both your video and your peer review ranks on time. But point will be deducted for the following situations:
3% for each additional member for your team
1% penalty per each day late for video submission
0.5% penalty per each day late for peer review submission
1% for duplicate project (other classmate have same project as you)
8%: instructor rank. The highest rank scores 8%; the second scores 7%, and so on. Note that a group project will be “fatter” than a single member project for scoring purposes. E.g., if a team with three members rank first. All three members score 8% and the members of the next highest rank team will score 5% each. I will rank yours presentation based on the following criteria.
40% (out of 8%): presentation and clarity. Is the background of the project clearly presented? Is the actual work done clearly described? Are sufficient pointers given so that other might repeat your work?
40% (out of 8%): perceived effort. How much effort have been involved? Excluding apparent dumb efforts though. For example, you won't score high in this category if you build your project from scratch with the assembly language. Yes, lots of efforts put into that. But those will be considered as dumb efforts. You should hunt for the best tools for your project whenever possible. The effort spent on hunting for the right tools is considered well spent.
20% (out of 8%): innovation and usefulness. Is the project useful in general? Can it be extended and maybe used in practice? And how innovative is the project? Is the project idea new? Is the approach new? Or is it just a trivial extension of some prior works?
16%: peer review rank. Similar to the instructor rank, but the weight is doubled. For example, assuming no team project, the highest ranking fellow scores 16%; next scores 14%, and so on.
4%: peer review bonus. The one who provides ranking that is closest to the instructor ranking scores 4%. The next scores 3.5% and so on.
N.B. >75% will get A, >50% and <75% will get B, >25% and <50% will get C.
N.B. “Mid-term” will likely to appear late near the end of the semester.
Some Fun Things to Try
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