Instructor: John Byers
MCS 280
Phone: 617-353-8925
Dept. of Computer Science
Email: byers@cs.bu.edu
Boston University
Fax: 617-353-6457
Grader: David Bonner
Email: dbonner@cs.bu.edu
Class meeting time: MWF 10:00-11:00, GCB 209
Office Hours: Monday & Thursday: 11:00 - 12:00
Textbook: The two textbooks listed below both supplement the curriculum well, albeit from rather different perspectives. The technical, in-depth coverage of network protocols provided by L. Peterson and B. Davie, Computer Networks: A Systems Approach , Morgan Kaufmann, 1996 makes it a required text. For a broader introduction with very clear, but sometimes less technical descriptions of the course topics, a recommended text is S. Keshav. An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking, Addison-Wesley, 1997.
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 engineering design standpoint. The primary focus of the course will be on the software used behind the scenes to build scalable, general-purpose data networks. Please note that the course description in the course catalog is dated and therefore obsolete. Major topics of this course will include:
Class Schedule (updated often).