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CSE 561: Computer Communication and Networks |
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Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9-10:20am in MEB 250 (status) Instructor: David Wetherall (mail) TA: Maya Rodrig (mail) Textbook: Peterson and Davie, Computer Networks: A Systems Approach,
3rd Ed., Morgan Kaufmann Publishers (now Elsevier). Pre-Requisites: The official pre-req is CSE451 or equivalent, implying a familiarity with systems concepts. The course does not assume prior knowledge of the Internet protocols, though you should expect to put in a greater amount of work if you have not taken an undergraduate networking course. You should also note that this is a project-based course. Announcements:
Overview This course has two goals: 1) to help you understand the fundamental ideas that underlie large-scale, distributed computer networks; and 2) to help you learn how to do networking (or more broadly systems) research. To do so, we will study the Internet, a remarkable engineering triumph by any measure that is rich in experience and lessons. It is one of the few systems of any kind to have successfully scaled in numbers of users by six orders of magnitude while providing continuous service over the past three decades. Yet, surprisingly, the design of the Internet is far from complete. Its everyday operation is poorly understood, it provides a playing ground that is not well-suited for competitive interests, and it is fragile and insecure against frequent disruptions by worms, viruses and denial-of-service attacks. The only certainty is that the Internet will continue to change, and this class is intended to help you understand how and why. A key part of the class will be to review and discuss a mix of mostly new and sometimes classic papers. There will also be occasional homework and a take home final to help students synthesize the course material. Critically analyzing papers is intended to let you learn about networking and research at the same time. But the best way to learn how to do research is to do research. Thus a major part of the course will be to split up into small teams to do a networking research project. We will provide a candidate list of topics, and work with teams throughout the quarter on their projects. The end result will be a research paper and half-hour presentation to the rest of the class. Grading
Readings In addition to background textbook reading, the course involves reading approximately 25 research papers. You can either print these papers yourselves or purchase a binder at the start of the quarter. (The expected price is roughly $20, and the instructor will take an order count at the first class.) Students are required to read all of the papers, and submit a written critique of one paper per class for which there is assigned reading (students may choose which paper to review when more than one is to be discussed at class). Reviews are submitted through the hypermail system on the class web page, and are due at 4pm on the day before class. This is to give the instructor and the class time to read each others reviews. Reviews should be roughly a half-page (no more than one page), and cover:
The paper summaries will be graded on a scale of 0-3. You get 0 if you didn't turn in the summary. You get 1 if you turned in a weak summary that didn't convince us that you understood the paper. Most grades are 2's: this is what you get if you clearly read and understood the paper, and had something interesting to say. 3 is reserved for exceptional insight, and very few are given out. Project The networking research project will be staged, much as a normal research effort would be, with frequent milestones. Each milestone adds some significant element to the paper, and the overall project grade will be based on the quality of the work at each milestone, in addition to the end result. Each team must also meet with the instructor three times during the quarter to help teams sharpen the focus of their project, discuss experimental method, etc. This should be done by appointment during office hours once in weeks 1-3, 4-6, and 7-9. The milestones are due by email to both the instructor and TA by the end of the given day of the respective week:
Final The take home final will be handed out at 5pm on Dec. 10 and will be due back at 5pm on Dec. 18, the end of the final exam period. So that students don't take the entire final exam period to work on it, the exam is designed to take no more than two days. Students may take any contiguous 48 hour period during the exam period to work on the final, on the honor system. David Wetherall (djw@cs.washington.edu) |
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Department of Computer Science & Engineering University of Washington Box 352350 Seattle, WA 98195-2350 (206) 543-1695 voice, (206) 543-2969 FAX [comments to Maya Rodrig] |
