CIS 553:
Networked Systems
Fall 2007

Instructor: Boon Thau Loo (boonloo AT cis.upenn.edu)
Room: Towne 315
Time: Tuesday and Thursday 4:30-6pm
Office hours: Monday 4-5pm (605 Levine Hall)
Newsgroup: upenn.cis.cis553 (instructions on accessing newsgroup)

Teaching assistants:

  • Anmol Ahuja (anmol AT seas.upenn.edu). Office hours: M 1:30-2:30pm, GRW072.
  • Xiao Chen (xiaoch AT seas.upenn.edu). Office hours: T 3:15-4:15pm, GRW072.

    Announcements

  • 12 Dec '07: Homework 3 solutions
  • 6 Dec '07: I will be giving a research seminar talk today. Please do attend if you are potentially interested in doing some research.
  • 5 Dec '07: I will be holding extra office hours next wednesday and thursday 2-3pm. Please come with questions about the final.
  • 2 Dec '07: Project 2 deadline has been extended to 5 Dec. You can still submit early and get 5% extra credits. Please read the newsgroup for more details.
  • 2 Dec '07: Please submit your project as a compressed tarball as an email to Anmol and myself.
  • 27 Nov '07: Homework 3 is due Dec 6.
  • Old announcements.

    Course Description

    This course provides an introduction to fundamental concepts in the design and implementation of networked systems, their protocols, and applications. Topics to be covered include: Internet architecture, network applications, addressing, routing, transport protocols, network security, and peer-to-peer networks. The course will involve three written assignments, two programming projects, a midterm, and a final. This course is open to all undergraduate and graduate students in the CIS department.

    Course textbook:

  • Computer Networks: A Systems Approach (4th Edition). Larry L. Peterson and Bruce S. Davie. (E.g., 1, 2, 3.)
  • Additional material will be drawn from selected research publications.

    Course pre-requisites:

  • CSE 121 (Programming Languages and Techniques II), or equivalent programming experience, or permission of instructor.

    Grading

  • Written homework assignments: 12%
  • Programming projects: 40%
  • Class participation: 3%
  • Midterm: 15%
  • Final: 30%

    Schedule

    Syllabus is subjected to change. Please revisit this page regularly before class. The lecture notes linked from this page can only be accessed by hosts in the upenn.edu domain.

    Date Topic Reading Slides Remarks
    Sep 6 Class introduction None [PDF]
    Sept 11 Internet Architecture, layering, and end-to-end arguments Chapter 1.1-1.3; [Cla88]
    Optional: [History]; [E2E]    		 [PDF]
    Sept 13 Socket programming
    Network performance metrics    		 Chapter 1.4, 1.5;
    Optional: Beej; Sockets;     		[PDF]
    Sept 18 Event-driven network programming
    Introduction to Fishnet (required for project 1)    		 Ous96; BCB03
    Fishnet1; Fishnet2
    Optional: WCD01    		 [PDF]
    [PDF]     		Guest lecture by Xiao Chen on Fishnet.
    Homework 1 (4%)
    Sept 20 Switch and router architecture Chapter 3.1-3.2, 3.4 [PDF]
    Sept 25 IP
    Intra-domain routing    		 Chapter 4.1-4.2; [SIG04]
    Optional: [SG04]    		 [PDF] Homework 1 due
    Sept 27 Inter-domain routing Chapter 4.3;
    Optional: [CR05]    		 [PDF] Project 1 (20%)
    Homework 1 due
    Oct 2 Multicast Chapter 4.4; [ESM] [PDF]
    Oct 4 Transport protocols (UDP and TCP) Chapter 5.1, 5.2 [PDF] Project 1 (milestone 1) due
    Oct 9 Congestion control Chapter 6.3, 6.4 [PDF]
    Oct 11 Internet measurements [Pax96] [Pax06] [PDF] Homework 2
    Homework 1 solutions
    Oct 16 Fall break Project 1 (milestone 2) due
    Oct 18 Queueing and QoS Chapter 6.2, 6.5 [PDF]
    Oct 23 Content-distribution networks Chapter 9.4.3
    [Akamai] [KL97]    		 [PDF] Homework 2 due
    Oct 25 Skype, Bittorrent [BS04] [PGE05] [GDJ05] [PDF] Homework 2 solutions
    Oct 30 Midterm
    Nov 1 P2P networks, distributed hash tables [SMK+01] [BKK+03]
    Chapter 9.4    		 [PDF]
    Nov 6 DHT-based Overlays [SAZ+02] [RKC01] [PDF]
    Nov 8 RON, Kazaa [GDS03] [ADK01] [PDF] Project 2 (20%)
    Nov 13 Anonymous overlay networks [RSG98] [Tor] [PDF] Guest lecture by Micah Sherr
    Nov 15 MAC Chapter 2.1-2.4, 2.6 [PDF]
    Nov 20 Mobility and wireless networking Chapter 2.8, 4.2.5 [PDF]
    Nov 22 Thanksgiving break
    Nov 27 Distributed Radio Technologies [LDL06] [TCC06] [PDF] Guest lecture by Prof. Jonathan Smith
    Homework 3
    Nov 29 Network Security None [PDF]
    Dec 4 Network Experimentation [PBF06] [WLS02] [PDF] Project 2 due on Dec 3.
    Dec 6 Wireless Network Coding, project presentations [KRH06] [PDF] Guest lecture by Yun Mao
    Homework 3 due
    Pizzas and drinks in class!
    17 Dec Final exam (noon-2pm)

    Significant Dates

  • Sep. 5, First day of classes
  • Sep. 21, Add period ends
  • Oct. 12, Drop period ends
  • Oct. 13 - 16, Fall break
  • Nov. 21-26, Thanksgiving break
  • Dec. 7, End of Fall term classes
  • Dec. 8-11, Reading days
  • Dec 12-19, Final exams