Data Networks, ICS 451

This page is http://www2.ics.hawaii.edu/~esb/2001fall.ics451/index.html

This is subject to change without notice -- please reload it in your browser if there is an item that might affect you that may have changed.

Instructor: Edo Biagioni

Office is in POST 311B, telephone (808)956-3891, e-mail esb@hawaii.edu. Office hours are: Teaching Assistants are Alexandre Guilloux and Yihua Xie.

Alexandre Guilloux has the job of assist students in the class with programming (for the projects). His assistance is specifically intended to help students learn -- it is not his job to help students find all the bugs in their programs. He has posted his office hours.

Yihua Xie has the job of writing test programs for the projects and using them, and a review of the code, to assign preliminary grades for the projects. The instructor uses this information in assigning the final grade for each project.

Goals

In this course, students will:

Organization

This class has two sections. Section 1 is face-to-face, Section 2 is entirely on-line and asynchronous (ALN). In this class, both sections will be treated in the same way. Students in either section are welcome to attend the lectures (if they can), but the lectures are not required. The audio and, if possible, the video of each lecture will also be recorded and made available on-line to anyone who wishes to access them asynchronously. The lecture is 1:30-4:10pm on Fridays in MSB 114.

All students are required to join the course mailing list -- to join, send email to esb@hawaii.edu. Be sure to include with your name and your email address (which must end in @hawaii.edu) and the section you are registered for, and to state that you wish to join (or be removed from) the ICS 451 mailing list. Only registered students will be allowed to join. All students are required to read the mailing list at least twice a week. If you haven't checked the mailing list in a while, be sure to check it before submitting any assignment. See here if you need help accessing your email on your hawaii.edu account.

Grades are assigned based on your performance on:

A cumulative score of 90% will guarantee an A in the course, 80% a B, 60% a C, and 50% a D. Depending on the performance of the class as a whole, I may or may not grade more generously.

There is no final exam. Any homeworks will not affect the final grade, so turning them in is optional. I do, however, recommend that you do them. Participation (electronic and in class) likewise is highly recommended but does not affect your grade.

The first project must be done individually. For the second project, I will assign teams. For the third project, you may do it individually or in teams of your choosing, up to a maximum of four students. For the first two projects you must use the C language, the third project may be in any language supported by uhunix2. Projects must be posted to a publicly accessible, stable web page before the project deadline, and the URL must be sent to the instructor. Each student will then be assigned a (different) project to review. Any web page that is not sufficiently stable (i.e., the project disappears before the instructor can copy it) will not get credit.

The textbook is "Computer Networks and Internets", by Douglas E. Comer (Prentice-Hall). Both the second edition (1999) and the third edition (2001) are fine. The textbook is available from the UH bookstore. Due to popular demand, I have also selected an optional reference book for sockets programming. This optional book should also be available from the UH bookstore, though if everyone decides to buy them, they will run out. It is most likely that these books are also stocked or can be ordered by your favorite bookstore -- shop early to be sure to get the textbook(s).

Cheating Policy: any cheating will result in a grade of 0 for the assignment or exam the first time it is detected, and a grade of F for the course for any subsequent instance. There is to be no collaboration whatsoever on homeworks or exams (you may study together, but anything you turn in, must be entirely your own intellectual contribution). This applies to the entire group in the case of group projects.

Tentative Schedule

This schedule is subject to change.

Lectures notes are in HTML. I usually post notes no later than the day before the lecture.

This schedule is loosely based on the same course taught in the Spring of 2001. If you wish to look ahead, please refer to that course. Two lectures in the Spring 2001 course correspond to one date in this schedule.

  1. Aug 31. Introduction and overview. Second edition: Chapters 23, 24, 25, and 29. Third edition: Chapters 26, 27, 28, and 32 (students with the third edition will probably benefit from chapter 3 at this point)
    Project 1 assigned, due September 28. Quiz 1 released.
    Materials Covered: Audio for the lecture: part 1 (.wav, 15MB), and part 2 as either .wav (35MB) or .mp3 (16MB).

  2. Sep 7. Second edition: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4. Third Edition: Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5.
    Materials Covered: Audio for the lecture: part 1 (.mp3, 20MB), and part 2 (.mp3, 46MB).

  3. Sep 14. Second edition: Chapters 5 and 6. Third Edition: Chapters 6 and 7.
    Materials Covered: Audio for the lecture: part 1 (.mp3, 33MB), and part 2 (.mp3, 19MB), and part 3 (.mp3, 15MB). I have also approximated what I wrote on the blackboard.

  4. Sep 21. Second edition: Chapters 7, 8, and 9. Third Edition: Chapters 8, 9, and 10.
    Materials Covered: Audio for the lecture: part 1 (.mp3, 29MB), and part 2 (.mp3, 11MB), and part 3 (.mp3, 21MB). I have also taken pictures of both the blackboard and Ethernet equipment.

  5. Sep 28. Second edition: Chapters 10 and 11. Third Edition: Chapters 11 and 12. First take-home exam assigned.
    Materials Covered: Audio for the lecture: part 1 (.mp3, 37MB), and part 2 (.mp3, 20MB), and part 3 (.mp3, 12MB). I have also made a record of what I wrote on the blackboard.
  6. Oct 5. ATM and Wan. Second edition: class materials and Chapter 12. Third Edition: Chapters 13 and 14.
    Project 2 assigned, due October 26.
    Materials Covered: Audio for the lecture: part 1 (.mp3, 25MB), and part 2 (.mp3, 23MB), and part 3 (.mp3, 12MB). I have also made a record of what I wrote on the blackboard.
  7. October 12. Second edition: Chapters 13, 14, and 15. Third Edition: Chapters 15, 16, and 17.
    Materials Covered: Unfortunately, there is no audio for this lecture. I recorded it as usual, then the batteries were low so I replaced the batteries. Replacing the batteries, unfortunately, cleared all the recordings. To make up for that, I have tried to make the blackboard record more comprehensive than usual. I encourage even the students who were present at the lecture to review the material.
  8. Oct 19. Second edition: Chapters 16 and 17. Third Edition: Chapters 18 and 19.
    Materials Covered: Audio for the lecture: part 1 (.mp3, 14MB), and part 2 (.mp3, 37MB). I have also made a record of what I wrote on the blackboard. Part 1 of the audio is truncated, for technical reasons :-(, and the blackboard section is correspondingly more detailed.
  9. Oct 26. Second edition: Chapters 18, 19, 20, and 21. Third Edition: Chapters 20, 21, 22, and 23 (students with the third edition may want to also study chapter 25 at this point). Second take-home exam assigned.
    Materials Covered: Audio for the lecture: part 1 (.mp3, 29MB), part 2 (.mp3, 3MB), and part 3 (.mp3, 29MB). I have also made a record of what I wrote on the blackboard.
  10. Nov 2. Second edition: Chapter 22, Third edition: Chapter 24. TCP Connection and Congestion Management. UDP.
    Review 1 assigned, due November 10th. If you have not gotten email about this review, please contact the instructor.
    Project 3 assigned, due December 9th.
    Materials Covered: Audio for the lecture: part 1 (.mp3, 30MB), part 2 (.mp3, 24MB), and part 3 (.mp3, 15MB). I have also made a record of what I wrote on the blackboard.
  11. Nov 9. Second edition: Chapters 26 and 27. Third Edition: Chapters 29 and 30.
    Materials Covered: Audio and blackboard: part 1 (.mp3, 27MB), part 2 (.mp3, 35MB), blackboard.
  12. Nov 16. Second edition: Chapters 31, 32, and 33. Third Edition: Chapters 34, 35, and 36.
    Materials Covered: Audio and blackboard: part 1 (.mp3, 36MB), part 2 (.mp3, 31MB), blackboard.
  13. Nov 30. Second edition: Chapters 34 and 35, Third edition: Chapters 37 and 38. Network performance metrics. Bandwidth-Delay products. The future.
    Materials Covered: Audio and blackboard: part 1 (.mp3, 35MB), part 2 (.mp3, 8.8MB), part 2 (.mp3, 20MB), blackboard.
  14. Dec 7. Review of the entire course and discussion of the future.
    Course Evaluation Forms (please bring number 2 pencil). Even if you are in the online section, you must show up in MSB 114 by 3:30 if you wish to complete the course evaluation form.
    Third take-home exam assigned (on Saturday December 8th).
    Materials Covered: Audio: part 1 (.mp3, 41MB), and part 2 (.mp3, 26MB) (the blackboard was not used).