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Overview: This course covers advanced fundamental principles of computer networks, studying foundational material in the field. Topics include advanced network architecture, network algorithmics, network control, network measurement, and wireless networks. The goal of this course is to teach networking fundamentals/techniques that will be useful for years to come.

Prerequisites: introductory (undergraduate level) courses in computer networks (e.g., CMPSCI 453), and algorithms (e.g., CMPSCI 311). Some familiarity with probability and with optimization theory will be helpful.

Instructor: Professor Don Towsley
       Department of Computer Science
       towsley at cs . umass . edu

Class meeting time: M/W 9:05 - 10:20. Make up classes will take place on Friday at the same time and in the same classroom. See schedule for some already scheduled makeups.
Office hours: M, W: 10:30 - 11:30 or by appointment

Class WWW site: http://www-net.cs.umass.edu/653.  We will make extensive use of the class WWW site.  You should check the WWW page on a near daily basis for updates

Class email list: There is a broadcast email list that will be used for the course: cs653 at cs. umass . edu. Send email to the instructor to be added to this list. You can send broadcast email to this list simply by sending your email to this address.

Teaching Assistant: Info on our TA is here..

Textbook: There is no textbook for the course. Reading material will be posted online whenever possible. In all other cases, material will be placed on reserve.

Topics:

• Protocol mechanisms. What protocol mechanisms/techniques are commonly found in networks protocols and why are they used? signaling, randomization, indirection, multiplexing, virtualization, scalability.
• Network architecture: Lessons from the Internet, ATM, and telephony. Circuit switching versus packet switching revisited.
• Router design. input- output-queueing, packet classification, scheduling.
• Network resource allocation. traffic engineering, congestion control as a resource allocation problem, TCP.
• wireless networking. What a networking person needs to know about the wireless media, how wireless cnanges networking solutions, TDMA vs. CSMA
• Measurement. Workload models; traffic and topology characterization, traffic sampling, network tomography.