Spring 2016
ENSC 833: NETWORK PROTOCOLS AND PERFORMANCE

TOPICS WEEK IN REVIEW ASSIGNMENTS EXAMS TEXTBOOKS

SCHEDULE STAFF PROJECTS TOOLS WEB SITES INFO

Current count of email messages related to ENSC 833 exchanged this term: 456.
Course description: This course covers the techniques needed to understand and analyze modern data communications networks. It covers the basic architecture of packet networks and their network elements (switches, routers, bridges), and the protocols used to enable transmission of packets through the network. It addresses techniques for collection, characterization, and modeling of traffic in packet networks. It covers aspects of traffic management, such as various call admission control and congestion control algorithms in high-speed packet networks and the influence of traffic on network performance.

This is a project oriented graduate course. Students will be introduced to various algorithms and software tools for simulating packet networks: OPNET (OPNET Technologies), ns-2 network simulator (Lawrence Berkeley Labs), Ptolemy (UC Berkeley), and AutoClass (NASA). S-PLUS (Insightful) tool for statistical analysis of traffic data will be also available.

Pre-requisites: Successful completion of ENSC 427-3 or permission of the instructor.

TOPICS:
WEEK IN REVIEW:
  • 1. January 4, 2016
  • 2. January 11, 2016
  • 3. January 18, 2016 (revised)
  • 4. January 25, 2016
  • 5. February 1, 2016 (revised)
  • *. February 8, 2016
  • 6. February 15, 2016
  • 7. February 22, 2016 (revised)
  • 8. February 29, 2016 (revised)
  • 9. March 7, 2016 (revised)
  • 10. March 14, 2016 (revised)
  • 11. March 21, 2016 (revised)
  • 12. March 28, 2016
  • 13. April 4, 2016
  • 14. April 11, 2016
    ASSIGNMENTS:

    Posted weekly by Friday. Due the following week on Sunday (firm deadline).
  • Assignment #1
  • Assignment #2
  • Assignment #3
  • Assignment #4 (revised)
  • Assignment #5
  • Assignment #6
  • Assignment #7
  • Assignment #8
  • Assignment #9 (revised: Tue Mar 8 18:52:45 PST 2016)
  • Assignment #10
  • Assignment #11
  • Assignment #12
  • Assignment #13
    EXAMS:

    MIDTERM EXAMS:
    Wednesday, March 9, 2016, 18:00 - 19:20, SECB 1011
    Wednesday, April 6, 2016, 18:00 - 19:20, SECB 1011

    FINAL EXAM:
    No final exam.

    FAS policy on mid-terms and finals is described in Section 5.7 of the FAS Handbook

    PROJECT REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS:

  • Project proposal(s) are due February 7, 2016 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute).
  • Project title, abstract, and a list of five references are due February 14, 2016 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute).
  • Web page describing your project including the list of five references is due February 21, 2016 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute).
  • Interim report is due March 13, 2016 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute).
  • The following files are due on Sunday, April 24, 2016 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute):
    • Presentation slides (Power Point and PDF files) of your final project,
    • URL for the web pages of your final project, and
    • Final written report (LaTEX or MS Word file and PDF file) of your final project.
  • Project class presentations will be held in class on April 11, 2016.
    The final project grading policy
    The final project grading form
    GRADING:
    Assignments 10%, midterm exams 20% (= 2 x 10%), class presentation 10%, and final project 60%.
    Click here to see your    scores and    midterm no. 1 exam,    midterm no. 2 exam, and    overall scores distribution charts.
    TEXTBOOKS:

    Recommended reading:
  • J. F. Kurose and K. W. Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, 6/E, Addison Wesley, 2013.
  • J. F. Kurose and K. W. Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, 5/E, Addison Wesley, 2010.
  • J. F. Kurose and K. W. Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, 4/E, Addison Wesley, 2008.
  • J. F. Kurose and K. W. Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet: 3/E, Addison Wesley, 2005.
  • J. Walrand and P. Varaiya, High-performance Communication Networks, 2/e, Morgan Kaufmann, 2000.
        Online version (click on "Full text - Books 24x7 limited to 5 simultaneous users" link once you access the page).
  • A. Leon-Garcia and I. Widjaja, Communication Networks: Fundamental Concepts and Key Architectures, 2nd edition, McGraw-Hill, 2004.
  • S. Keshav, Engineering Approach to Computer Networking: ATM Networks, the Internet, and the Telephone Network, Addison Wesley, 1997.
  • J. Walrand, Communication Networks, A First Course, 2/e, McGraw-Hill, 1998.
  • D. Bertsekas and R. Gallager, Data Networks, Second edition, Prentice Hall, 1992.
  • L. L. Peterson and B. Davie, Computer Networks, A Systems Approach, 3rd edition, Morgan Kaufmann, 1999.

    • Other related sources:
  • T. G. Robertazzi, Computer Networks and Systems, Queuing Theory and Performance Evaluation, Third edition, Springer Verlag, 2000.
  • M. De Prycker, Asynchronous Transfer Mode: Solutions for Broadband ISDN, Ellis Horwood, 1991.
  • I. Katzela, Modeling and Simulating Communication Networks, A Hands-on Approach Using OPNET, Prentice Hall, 1999.

    • Check the status of the books on reserve for ENSC 833 by typing "ENSC 833" (with the space) in the search window.

    JOURNALS:
  • IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials
  • IEEE Network, The magazine of global information exchange
  • IEEE Communications Magazine
  • ACM Computer Communication Review
  • IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
  • IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking
    SCHEDULE:
    Lectures:
    Mondays and Wednesdays 18:00 - 19:20 in SECB 1011
    Location: South East Classroom Block (SECB)

    Projects:
    ENSC Undergraduate Computer room: ESIL Lab ASB 10802 is equipped to provide local access to OPNET.

    PROFESSOR:

    TEACHING ASSISTANT:

    • No TA is available for the course this term.

    COMPUTING HELP:

    PROJECTS:
    ENSC 833 Spring 2016 project teams
    ENSC 833 Spring 2016 project proposals
    ENSC 833 Spring 2016 projects
    Presentation schedule (revised)

    Instructions for in class presentations of your ENSC 833 final projects
    Instructions for writing ENSC 833 final project reports
    IEEE Tools for Authors for writing papers. Subsection "Template for Transactions", "Instructions Only".

    Samples of past projects:
    Past course web pages are located at: http://www2.ensc.sfu.ca/~ljilja/teaching.html

    SOFTWARE TOOLS:
  • Instructions how to run Riverbed Modeler (formerly OPNET) (under revision)
  • Get familiar with Linux/CentOS. The following sites have links to useful Unix tutorials and documentation:
        http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-unix-commands-cheat-sheets.html
        http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO.html
        http://wiki.centos.org/HowTo To run ns-2 and/or ns-3 on a PC running MS operating system, download:
        Option 1 (easier): Ubuntu virtual machine. Login and password may be found on the same page. Downlaod VirtualBox in order to run the virtual machine.
        Option 2: cygwin
  • Review:
        Running tools remotely
    Riverbed Modeler version 18.0 environment settings.
        Riverbed Modeler main page
  • ns-3 website, ns-3 tutorial, ns-3 documentation, and ns-3 wiki page
  • ns-2 simulator and documentation
        BlueHoc: Bluetooth Performance Evaluation Tool
        Network Designer (NetDes) with ns Java applet
  • Ptolemy
  • Omnet++
  • S-PLUS for Unix and S-PLUS for Windows

    TRAFFIC TRACES:
    Locally available short traces:

  • Star Wars data:
      VBR Frames: trace and its description.
      MPEG Frames: trace and its description.
      Trace for ns StarWars trace for ns (14 MBytes) and its description.
  • News recorded video data: news.IPB, news.I, news.P, news.B, and their description.
  • Short extracts from Bellcore Ethernet traces:
      tpAug89_2000.TL, pOct89_2000.TL, OctExt_2000.TL, and their description.
    FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
    Email messages with hints and answers to some frequently asked questions.
    (Check FAQ pages from prior ENSC 427, ENSC 833, ENSC 835, ENSC 894, and ENSC 895 offerings for useful hints.)
    FAQ in 2016
    FAQ in 2003
    WEB SITES OF INTEREST:
  • Communication Networks Laboratory
  • Research with OPNET at SFU
  • Other web sites of interest
    INFO:
    TOPICS WEEK IN REVIEW ASSIGNMENTS EXAMS TEXTBOOKS

    SCHEDULE STAFF PROJECTS TOOLS WEB SITES INFO

    Created by
    Ljiljana Trajkovic
    ljilja at cs.sfu.ca
    Last modified: Tue May 31 16:33:35 PDT 2016.