Chalmers University of Technology and Gothenburg University, Computer Science and Engineering Department

Course on Computer Communication

CTH EDA343, GU DIT420, 7.5 points
Period 2 (Nov-Dec) 2011


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News | Learning Goals | Teaching team/student representative teams, contact, classes | Course literature and Notes | Assignments/Labwork and Other Duties | Schedule: Lectures, Excercises| Parallel interest and past exams

News

2012-01-09: Exam inspection: Mon Jan 16, 13:00-13:30, room 5128, EDIT buildingd, west wing.
Summary Notes and last lectures update available through the slides link. Best wishes for the exam and the Xmas break!
2011-12-05: A new lab 2 timeslot is available (TUESDAY Dec 6 13.15-17.00) at the Assignments section.
2011-12-01: Exercise notes are available through same link as the slides/notes.
2011-11-30: Swapped topics in the coming lectures: p2p is before multimedia/streaming
2011-11-12: A list of questions and answers for Assignment 1 is maintained at here.
2011-11-11: Next week's lectures will be held by other teachers who are kindly helping.
2011-11-10: Tomorrow's lecture will be held by Tomas Olovsson, who has been very kind to offer support for the situation.
2011-11-09: Today's lecture postponed due to health reasons. Please check this section and Schedule table below for updates
2011-11-07: Assignment 3 is available at the Assignments section below.
2011-11-04: Please take a look at the study goals and comment on them, the matching with the study during the course, as well as suggest wishes if you have. You may contact the course representative for this, the teachers directly, or simply leave a note during some class break.
2011-11-01: You can find a link to book a supervised lab slot at the Assignments section below. Please read the instructions carefully before you book a slot!
2011-10-08: Page is updated for the 2011/2012 edition of the course.
If you need a lab partner please join the doodle-survey and write your name and address so that other students can find you, or contact directly someone already in the list. Please remember to come back and delete your name as soon as you find a partner.
2010-10-28(a) There exists an independent course (CISCO CCNA) that you may possibly take if you wish; in case of interest and further questions, you may contact our colleague and instructor of that course, Ali Salehson



Aim/Learning Goals

This is a basic course which offers an introductory presentation of data communication and computer networks, including parts of data communication that practicing engineers normally will encounter in their daily work. After completion of this course, the student should be able to
- distinguish the different network layers, their services and the related protocols. In particular, students will be able to:
- Explain and understand the major problems in each of these
- Explain possible solutions and solutions adopted in today's networks (e.g. in the Internet)
- Understand constraints in the currently existing solutions that place obstacles to other options for solving the main problems
- Build and configure a working network and have an understanding of computer configuration and routing issues in networks
Moreover, via the course assignments students will train in solving network-related problems, as well as in implementing simple network protocols and building up a small network from scratch, the students will have gained experience by doing practical work in applying the knowledge offered by the course in realistic situations.
In the study of protocols, we start with application level protocols enabling students to start with more familiar paradigms in the context of applications that we use regularly. Moving to lower layers later on, we have the possibility to gradually uncover network services, their functionality and the ease/difficulty for achieving them.
Topics covered include: networking applications, content distribution, HTTP, SMTP, TCP, UDP, performance and congestion analysis, IP, switching, routing, mobile IP, local area networks, multiple access protocols (IEEE 802.X and others), wireless networks, bridges, physical media, error-detection and correction, and network security.

As the subject is rich and there is a lot of material to discuss and grasp -of diverse character: algo+math-oriented; comp-architecture-oriented; 3-5-letter-initials-oriented
Some advice: to be able to put things in perspective:
- come to classes; try to ask questions; study on-line (don't wait until last weeks); do the labs in time   (don't wait until last weeks);
- practice makes perfect: practice on exercises, questions, use www-site of book, experiment with  protocols following the hints in the book


Teaching and student representative teams, contact, classes

Responsible for the course: Marina Papatriantafilou
The other members of the course-team: Bapi Chatterjee  Zhang Fu  Giorgos Georgiadis  Khoa Quang Huynh  Elad M. Schiller 
Office hours: Meetings can be arranged on-line, via e-mail. You can reach the whole team via dkom.cse(replace-all-in-parenthesis-with-at-symbol)chalmers.se
registration: via the student portal or contact the study councellor of your program.
Course rooms, hours: Tue 13.15-15, Wed 10-11.45, Fri 10-10.45.
Note Make sure to consult the Schedule table below for the updated schedule and ( CTH-timeedit-link) for the exact classroom.
Student representatives: (Hamid Ebadi hamid.ebadi@gmail.com, Christoffer Fougstedt, chrfou@student.chalmers.... Pia Alexandra Specht, alpia@student.chalmers.... Thomas Urdell, urdell@student.chalmers.... )
students who have feedback on the course may contact these colleagues and/or the instructors directly.
Regarding the course feedback procedure cf. presentation of procedure, goals, motivation
Notes of mid-course meeting of the feedback team link

Course literature and Notes

The main textbook will be:
Computer Networking, A Top-Down approach featuring the Internet, 5/e
by J.F.Kurose and K.W.Ross, Addison-Wesley

The slides/notes used in the lectures will be getting available at this link (slides from last year's classes at this link). Please bear in mind that the notes are not provided to replace the need to read from the book or attend the lectures.
Acknowledgement: Many of the slides are adaptations of the slides available for instructors via the web-page of the main textbook.
Source material : copyright J.F Kurose and K.W. Ross, All Rights Reserved

Reading list for the main textbook:(Students reading from 4/e, please check with the 5/e for changes, the most significant occur in chapters 5, 6 and 8. )

Careful Quick
4/e,5/e: 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 4/e,5/e: the rest
4/e,5/e: 2.2, 2.4-2.5, 2.7-2.9 4/e,5/e: 2.1, 2.3, 2.6
4/e,5/e: 3.1, 3.2, 3.4-3.7 4/e,5/e: 3.3
4/e,5/e: 4.1-4.7  
4/e,5/e: 5.1-5.6, 5.8 4/e,5/e: 5.7
4/e,5/e: 6.1-6.6, 6.8 4/e,5/e: 6.7
4/e,5/e: 7.1.2, 7.1.3, 7.2, 7.3, 7.5, soft-state-related parts from 7.6 4/e,5/e: the rest
4/e: 8.1-8.6, 5/e: 8.1-8.5 4/e: 8.7-8.9, 5/e : 8.8

There may also be some supplementary and invited lectures/tutorials emphasizing on special topics. If there extra notes, there will be advice via this page on how to get them.

Other books that the students may find useful  (available at Chalmers Library) include:
Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, by L. Peterson and B. Davie, Morgan Kaufman;
Computer and Network Organization: An Introduction, by Maarten van Steen and Henk Sips, Prentice Hall (very good introductory book for non-CSE students!);
Data and Computer Communications, by W. Stallings, Prentice Hall;
"Computer Networks", by Andrew Tanenbaum, Prentice-Hall.


Assignments, Labwork and Other Duties

General info/instructions

Students must register in pairs for lab sessions. If you need a lab partner please join the doodle-survey and write your name and address so that other students can find you, or contact directly someone already in the list. Please remember to come back and delete your name as soon as you find a partner .
If you find the above procedure too complicated you can always write to the course's email. However, using the doodle speeds up the process considerably and provides more flexibility.

For the assignments submissions we use the fire system. Please register to that system (in pairs) and get a group number that you should use also for your communication with the course support team (reservation lists, email communication, etc

Links to assignments

Other duties and "logistics"



Schedule: Lectures and excercises

Please make sure that you "reload' this page to get up-to-date info Also make sure to consult the ( CTH-timeedit-link) for the exact classroom.
Week
 Tuesday 13.15-15
Wednesday 10-11.45
Friday 10-11.45
Other
 43 (Oct24-28)
() L1: Introduction L2: Internet overview and Application Layer Book lab-time for assignment 1 (questions/presentation)
 44 (Oct31-Nov4)
L3: Internet Applications (cont) Tutorial on 1st assignment(KQH) Exercises: ch. 1, 2 (cf list following this table)(ZF) Recall: book time for labs! (first questions then presentations booking!)
 45 (Nov7-11)
L4: Transport Layer: reliable data transfer, error and flow control L5: (rescheduled due to health reasons) L6: Transport Layer: TCP (ack, connection management. congestion control) get help with assignment 1 (book time first)
46(Nov14-18)
L7: Network Layer: router's functionality, IP addressing and forwarding Exercises: ch 3, 4 (cf list following this table)(ZF)
L8: Network Layer: routing algorithms and protocols present assignment 1 (book time first); then submit code via fire
 47 (Nov21-25)
L9: Link Layer: functionality, error detection, media access algorithms, Ethernet and related protocols Description of 2nd assignment
----------
Exercises: ch 5 (KQH)
L10: Wireless and Mobility (EMS instr) present assignment 1 (book time first); then submit code via fire.

don't forget to book for lab2!
 48 (Nov28-Dec 2)
L11: Security (EMS instr) Exercises: ch. 6,8 (KQH) L12: Peer-to-peer networks lab at Lindholmen (must have booked first)
 49 (Dec 5-10)
L13: Multimedia Networking: bandwidth, timing requirements/guarantees, quality of service, traffic shaping algorithms, congestion control; VC types of networks Exercises: 2(p2p), 7 (BC) L14: Other/advanced networking issues and Summary Assignment 3 is due

 50

     EXAM 15 Dec 2011 14-18 ; --
 RE_EXAM: May, August     -  

Excercise list for the corresponsing sessions (problem numbers from main textbook)
CH1: Ed/5 1.2, 1.5, 1.6, 1.10 (e/4 1.2, 1.5, 1.7, 1.13) (ed/3: 1.2, 1.5, 1.6, 1.8, 1.10)
CH2: 2.2, 2.8, P2P: 2.12 (correction: us/N<=dmin, question b is changed to question c and vice versa), 2.18 (e/4 2.3, 2.7) (ed/3: 2.4, 2.6) P2P: e/4 2.17, 2.18 (ed/3 ?, ?)
CH3: 3.15, 3.14, 3.22, 3.37, 3.38 (e/4 3.14, 3.18, 3.20, 3.38) (ed/3 3.12, 3.16, 3.18, 3.31, 3.34)
CH4: 4.8, 4.18, 4.29 (e/4 4.8, 4.19, 4.34) (ed/3: 4.7, 4.18, 4.31)
CH5: 5.13, 5.16, 5.27 (e/4 5.7, 5.19, 5.26) (ed/3 5.5, 5.15, 5.16)
CH6: 6.13, 6.14 (e/4 6.11, 6.13) (ed/3: 6.7, 6.9)
CH7: 7.2, 7.27, 7.23 (e/4 7.3, 7.28, 7.20) (ed/3 7.4, 7.21, 7.18)
CH8: 8.8, 8.10 (e/4 8.9, 8.10) (ed/3: ?, ?)  

Additional exercises: Ed/5: 1.7, 1.23, 1.25, 2.9, 2.21, 2.23, 3.13, 3.20, 3.40, ??, ??, 4.25, 4.23, 4.36, 5.15, 5.10 (e/4 1.6, 1.18, 1.26, 2.8, 2.22, 2.23, 3.13, 3.21, 3.39, ??, ??, 4.22, 4.24, 4.39, 5.15, 5.17) (ed/3: 1.7, 1.14, 1.22, 2.7, 2.19, 2.20, 3.11, 3.19, 3.32, 3.35, 3.37, 4.21, 4.23, 4.36, 5.11, 5.13)


Parallel interest and past exams

Interesting Pointers
Some Past Exams

Distributed Computing & Systems Research Group @ CS @ CTH
Oct 7, 2011