CS 555: Computer Networks

Fall 2000

Class meeting time: MWF 11:00-12:00, CAS 316 (Note room change effective 9/15).

Instructor: John Byers

MCS 280
Phone: 617-353-8925
Dept. of Computer Science
Email: byers@cs.bu.edu
Boston University
Fax: 617-353-6457

Office Hours: Monday 2:00 - 3:30 and Thursday 10:00 - 11:30

Teaching Fellow : Stan Rost

MCS 144
Email: prgrssor@cs.bu.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday 3:00 - 5:00 and Friday 1:00 - 3:00

Lab Hours (only when programming assignments are due): Thursday 4:00 - 6:00 in the Undergraduate Programming Lab.

Graders: Huan Luo and Christopher LoBue

Course Overview: This course serves as a graduate introduction to computer networks and is suitable for beginning graduate students and seniors. The course will investigate the design of computer networks and network protocols, from both a conceptual and a design standpoint. The primary focus of the course will be on the software used behind the scenes to build scalable, general-purpose data networks. Expect us to cover the overwhelming majority of the topics in the Peterson and Davie text. Major topics of this course will include:

Protocol layering
Internet design principles and methodology
Congestion control and flow control
TCP/IP implementation
Naming and addressing
Unicast and multicast routing
Rate allocation policies, i.e. fairness, QoS
Advanced network protocols

Starting this semester, CS 555 is the first course in a two-semester networking sequence. The second course in the sequence, CS 556, will cover advanced topics in greater depth and will provide more hands-on experience with network programming, both at endhosts and at network routers.

Textbook: The technical, in-depth coverage of network protocols provided by L. Peterson and B. Davie, Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, 2nd Edition , Morgan Kaufmann, 1999, makes it a required text. Please be sure to purchase the new second edition with the blue cover rather than the brown-covered first edition. Another useful text which provides a broader introduction with clear, but sometimes less technical descriptions of the course topics, is S. Keshav, An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking, Addison-Wesley, 1997.

Prerequisites: CS 350, CS 330 and MA 294 are essential prerequisites for taking CS 555; please consult the instructor if you are uncertain about your preparation.

The following class schedule is updated on a daily basis to reflect what we have covered so far.

Handouts:

9/6: Syllabus (PostScript, pdf)
9/10: Homework 1 [Due in class on 9/20] (ps, pdf)
9/20: Homework 1 Solutions (ps, pdf)
9/27: Homework 2 [Due in class on 10/6] (ps, pdf)
10/4: Homework 1 returned (Mean = 27.2 / 40).
10/5: Programming Assignment 1 [Due on 10/30]
10/6: Homework 2 Solutions (Q1 in ps, Q1 in pdf,) (Q2-4 in ps, Q2-4 in pdf)
10/12: Homework 3 [Due in class on 10/23] (ps, pdf)
10/12: The TCP specification (RFC 793) needed to help answer Q1 of HW3. No need to print this out or read this document in its entirety.
10/18: Homework 2 returned (Mean = 30.8 / 40).
10/20: Sample Midterm (last year's exam -- only 55 minutes long) (ps, pdf)
This year's midterm is cumulative through the lecture on Wed., 10/18. See the class schedule for a recap of what we have covered so far.
10/23: Homework 3 Solutions (ps, pdf)
11/1: Midterm returned (mean = 55/100).
11/6: Homework 3 returned (mean = 29/40).
11/13: Programming Assignment 2 [Due on 12/8]
11/13: Homework 4 [Due in my office by noon on 11/22] (ps, pdf)
11/22: Homework 4 Solutions (ps, pdf)
11/30: Homework 5 [Optional. Due in class on 12/11] (ps, pdf)
12/6: Homework 4 returned (mean = 28/40).
12/11: Homework 5 Solutions (ps, pdf)