Instructor: Prof. Jun (Jim) Xu

Table of Contents

• Course Information
• Textbook and References
• Syllabus - Schedule
• Project
• Homeworks and Previous Exams
• Grading
• Course Policies
• Miscellanea

Course Information and Objectives

• In this semester, the syllabus will put a major emphasize on so-called network algorithmics (a.k.a. router/switch architectures and algorithms). We will study algorithms and protocols used by modern routers/switches to do routing, forwarding, address/prefix lookups, switching, scheduling, counting, flow classification, flow monitoring and measurement, IP traceback and other security functions, etc.  Whenever possible, we focus on general design principles rather than specific choices adopted by particular vendors.
  

• The pre-requisite for this course is CS 4251 here or equivalent (An undergarudate networking course that covers OSI/ISO 7 layers and TCP/IP will suffice).  However, this is a very heavy course because I will cover advanced algorithm techniques and will NOT have time to refresh you on undergraduate algorithms and data structures.  Whenever necessary, students are expected to make up the gap on their own.  The objective is to go well beyond the basic level of understanding that is typically offered at an undergraduate networking course.

• The course also includes a research project (see below).
  

• Every student MUST fill in the course survey form and print out and submit the "receipt page".
  

Textbook and additional references

Network Algorithmics

The other half will come from research papers (many by myself). We will also cover parts of the following book (you don't need to purchase it):

• A. Kumar, D. Manjunath and J. Kuri, Communication Networking, An Analytical Approach , 2004

Syllabus - Tentative schedule (subject to adjustments)

• Week-1: Introduction, overview of router architectures and hardware
  
• Introduction
• George Varghese's Slides
• Chapter 1, Chapter 2.1, 2.2, 2.3
  
• CRC
• Varghese Chapter 9.2
• Sparse CRC intermediate polynomial computation programs (gap-simple.cpp, main.c) authored by Prof. Xu in 2001.
  
• "Fast CRC calculation", by Glaise, R.J.   Jacquart, X. , published in IEEE ICCD'93.
  
• Satistics Counters in Network Measurement (to be cont')
  
• Varghese Chapter 16.1

• Week-2
  
• Exact Lookups and Prefix-Match IP Lookups
• Readings: Varghese chapters 10 and 11 (I did not cover 11.6, 11.7, 11.8, 11.11, and 11.12)
  

• Week-3
  
• Prefix-Match IP Lookups and Packet classification algorithms
  
• Readings: Varghese chapter 12

• Week-4
• Prefix-Match IP Lookups and Packet classification algorithms
  
• Readings: Varghese chapter 12

• Week-5
  
• Prefix-Match IP Lookups and packet classification Algorithms
• Readings: Varghese chapter 12


• Week-6
  
• Switching algorithms
• Readings: Varghese 13.1 through 13.8
  

• Week-7
  

• Switching algorithms continued
  

• Week-8
  
• Switching algorithms continued
  

• Week-9 through 11
  
• Packet scheduling and QoS, Programmable Priority Encoder
• Readings: Varghese chapter 14, 2.2
  




A generalized processor sharing approach to flow control in integrated services networks : The Single-Node case.
A. Parekh and R. Gallager.

IEEE Transacting on Networking, 1993.  (We only talked about Theorems 1 in class)
WF2Q : Worst-case Fair Weighted Fair Queueing.
J. Bennett, H. Zhang
IEEE Infocom, 1996.  (We talked about the scheduler and its equivalence to WFQ under certain traffic conditions)


• Derivation of the saturation throughput of HOL blocking



• Week-12
  
• Counter Slides (our counter array paper , and SLIDES)
  
• Varghese Chapters 16.2 through 16.9

• Week-13
• Counters Continued. (BRICK paper and slides)

• Week-14
  
• A few slides on a so-called "times-2 bound"
  

• Week-15
  
• Network data streaming algorithms
  
• Readings:

• Week-16
  
• Leaky bucket shaping (Chp. 14.3), latency-rate servers, and end-to-end delay guarantees (Sec. V.A in the following paper).
  
• Xu, J., and Lipton, R. 2002. ``On Fundamental Tradeoffs between Delay Bounds and Computational Complexity in Packet Scheduling Algorithms'' , ACM SIGCOMM'2002, Pittsburgh, PA, August 2002.  
  
• Project report due on Friday, 12/9, via T-square. (Please submit electronicly via T-square.  Hardcopy submission is NOT allowed!)
  

Project (tentative)

Perhaps the most exciting part of this course will be the term project. In groups of 3-4 students, you will specify, design, and/or implement (if possible) something (an algorithm, hardware/software system, or protocol) that is novel and/or requires significant effort.  This project must be related to network algorithmics.  I suggest that you look at the recent (online) proceedings of conferences such as SIGMETRICS, SIGCOMM, ANCS, or IMC to get some ideas about novel network algorithmics.  So, start thinking about project partners and cool project ideas!

There are some constraints however:

• Your project proposal will need to be approved by the instructor. Talk to the instructor whenever you have a concrete idea. Do not wait for the first project milestone.
• The project will need to be sufficiently complex and appropriate for this course. Something like a simple client-server program or a basic routing protocol would not be challenging enough.
• On the other hand, it must not be too hard either. It should be feasible for 3-4 students to finish the project within a couple of months.

Project milestones:

1. Form groups, submit 1-page project proposal: TBD
   
2. Final deadline - final project report submission:  TBD
   
3. Demos: TBD
   

Homeworks

Grading (tentative)

• Midterm (Oct. 19th, Wednesday, in class): 20%
• Final (Dec. 16th, Friday, 2:50 -- 4:40): 35%
  
• Project: 25%
• Homeworks: 10% 
• Simply filling out course evaluations: 10%
  

Course Policies

• All work for this class, except the group project, is to be done individually. You are strongly urged to familiarize yourselves with the GT Student Honor Code rules.
  Specifically, the following is not allowed:
  1. Copying, with or without modification, someone else's work when this work is not meant to be publicly accessible (e.g., a classmate's program or solution).
  2. Submission of material that is wholly or substantially identical to that created or published by another person or persons, without adequate credit notations indicating authorship (plagiarism).
  You are encouraged to discuss problems and papers with others as long as this does not involve copying of code or solutions. Any public material that you use (open-source software, help from a text, or substantial help from a friend, etc...) should be acknowledged explicitly in anything you submit to us. If you have any doubt about whether something is legal or not please do check with the class Instructor or the TA.
• No late homeworks, assignments, or projects will be accepted. The deadline for each homework/assignment/project will be specified at the corresponding handout.