CIS 553 / TCOM 512:
Networked Systems
Fall 2009

Instructor: Boon Thau Loo (boonloo AT cis.upenn.edu)
Room: Wu and Chen auditorium
Time: Monday and Wednesday (12-1:30pm)
Office hours: Monday 1:30-2:30pm (605 Levine Hall)

Teaching assistants:

  • Changbin Liu (changbl AT seas.upenn.edu). Office hours: Wed 2-3pm (613 Levine)
  • Xiaozhou Li (xiaozhou AT seas.upenn.edu). Office hours: Tues 3-4pm (6th floor Levine)
  • Karen Tao (taot AT seas.upenn.edu). Office hours: Thurs 4-5pm (6th floor Levine)

    Graders: Saumya Jain (saumyaj AT seas.upenn.edu), Steven Zhou (wenchaoz AT seas.upenn.edu)

    Announcements

  • All announcements will be posted on the newsgroup. If you are enrolled in this class, join the newsgroup asap.
  • Undergrads interested in this course should email Professor Loo directly, cc to Mike Felker (mfelker@seas) to get permissions to enroll in this course.

    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, ESE, and TCOM departments.

    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. Data structures and basic probability.

    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 slides are available on the newsgroup.


    Intra-domain routing
    Date Topic Reading Remarks
    Sep 9 Class introduction None
    Sept 14 Internet Architecture, layering, and end-to-end arguments Chapter 1.1-1.3; [Cla88]
    Optional: [History]; [E2E]
    Sept 16 Network performance metrics Chapter 1.4, 1.5;
    Sept 21 Event-driven network programming
    Socket programming    		 Ous96; BCB03
    Optional: Beej; Sockets; WCD01    		 Homework 1 (due Sept 28)
    Sept 23 Switch and router architecture
    Subversion and code repository    		 Chapter 3.1-3.2, 3.4 TAs guest lecture on subversion
    Sept 28 IP Chapter 4.1-4.2;
    Fishnet1; Fishnet2     		Project 1 (due Oct 20, checkpoints Oct 2 and Oct 12)
    Sept 30 Inter-domain and Inter-domain routing
    Introduction to Fishnet (required for project 1)     		Chapter 4.3 TA guest lecture on FishNet.
    Oct 5 Inter-domain routing Chapter 4.3;
    Oct 7 Inter-domain routing, Transport protocols (UDP and TCP) Chapter 5.1, 5.2; [CR05]
    Oct 12 TCP, congestion control Chapter 6.3, 6.4
    Oct 14 Network simulation NS-3 Guest lecture by Joe Kopena
    Oct 19 Fall break
    Oct 21 Congestion control Chapter 6.3, 6.4 Homework 2 (due Oct 28)
    Oct 26 Variants of TCP
    Oct 28 Multicast Chapter 4.4
    Optional: [ESM]
    Nov 2 Midterm
    Nov 4 P2P networks, distributed hash tables [SMN03] [BKK+03]
    Chapter 9.4
    Nov 9 DHT-based overlays [SAZ+02]
    Optional: [RKC01] [DKK01]    		 Project 2 (due Dec 1)
    Nov 11 Quality of Service Chapter 6.2, 6.5
    Nov 16 QoS, Resilient overlays [Pax96]
    Nov 18 Resilient overlays (cont) [ADK01]
    Nov 23 MAC Chapter 2.1-2.4, 2.6
    Nov 25 Mobility and wireless networking Chapter 2.8, 4.2.5
    Nov 30 Anonymous overlay networks [RSG98] [Tor] Guest lecture by Micah Sherr
    Homework 3 (due Dec 8)
    Dec 2 Wireless networking (mobile IP and wireless TCP)
    Dec 7 Dynamic spectrum access networks [CBL09] Guest lecture by TA Changbin Liu
    Dec 9 Routing in mobile ad-hoc networks [BMJ98] [Epi]
    Dec 17 Final exam (Noon - 2pm) Wu and Chen

    Significant Dates

  • Sep. 9, First day of classes
  • Sep. 25, Add period ends
  • Oct. 16, Drop period ends
  • Oct. 17 - 19, Fall break
  • Nov. 26 - Nov. 29, Thanksgiving break
  • Dec. 10, End of Fall term classes
  • Dec. 11-14, Reading days
  • Dec 15-22, Final exams