Spring 2018
ENSC 835: COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

TOPICS WEEK IN REVIEW ASSIGNMENTS EXAMS TEXTBOOKS

SCHEDULE STAFF PROJECTS TOOLS WEB SITES INFO

Current count of email messages related to ENSC 835 exchanged this term: 196.
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 1, 2018 (revised)
  • 2. January 8, 2018
  • 3. January 15, 2018 (revised)
  • 4. January 22, 2018
  • 5. January 29, 2018 (revised)
  • 6. February 5, 2018
  • *. February 12, 2018
  • 7. February 19, 2018
  • 8. February 26, 2018 (revised)
  • 9. March 5, 2018
  • 10. March 12, 2018 (revised)
  • 11. March 19, 2018 (revised)
  • 12. March 26, 2018
  • 13. April 2, 2018
  • 14. April 9, 2018
    ASSIGNMENTS:
    Posted weekly by Friday. Due the following week on Sunday (firm deadline).
  • Assignment #1 (revised)
  • Assignment #2
  • Assignment #3 (revised)
  • Assignment #4 (revised)
  • Assignment #5 (revsied)
  • Assignment #6 (revised, extended deadlne)
  • Assignment #7 (revised)
  • Assignment #8 (revised)
  • Assignment #9
  • Assignment #10
  • Assignment #11 (revised)
  • Assignment #12
  • Assignment #13

    GRADING SCHEMES:
  • Assignment #1
  • Assignment #2
  • Assignment #3 (revised)
  • Assignment #4 (revised)
  • Assignment #5 (revised)
  • Assignment #6 (revised)
  • Assignment #7
  • Assignment #8
  • Assignment #9
  • Assignment #10 (revised)
    EXAMS:

    MIDTERM EXAMS:
    Monday, February 19 2018, 18:30 - 19:50, AQ 5005
    Wednesday, April 2, 2018, 18:30 - 19:50, AQ 5005

    FINAL EXAM:
    No final exam.

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

    PROJECT REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS:

  • Project teams are due January 14, 2018 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute).
  • Project proposal(s) are due February 4, 2018 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute).
  • Project title, abstract, and a list of five references are due February 11, 2018 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute).
  • Web page describing your project including the list of five references is due February 18, 2018 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute).
  • Interim report is due March 11, 2018 (midnight: 11:59 PM + 1 minute).
  • Project class presentations will be held in class on April 9, 2018 and April 11, 2018.
  • The following files are due on Sunday, April 22, 2018 (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.

    The final project grading policy
    The final project grading form
    GRADING:
    Assignments 20%, Midterm exam 1 10%, Midterm exam 2 10%, class presentation 10%, and final project 50%.
    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, 7/E, Addison Wesley, 2017.
  • 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. Errata page.
  • 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 835 by typing "ENSC 835" (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 18:30 - 19:50 in AQ 5005

    Projects:
    ENSC Undergraduate Computer Room: ASB 10802 (open lab) is equipped to provide local access to Riverbed Modeler.

    PROFESSOR:

    TEACHING ASSISTANT:

      Zhida Li
      zhidal at sfu.ca
      Office hours and lab support:
      Mondays and Wednesdays, 17:00 to 18:00 (ESIL Lab ASB 10802)

    COMPUTING HELP:

    PROJECTS:
    ENSC 835 Spring 2018 project teams
    ENSC 835 Spring 2018 project proposals
    ENSC 835 Spring 2018 projects
    Presentation schedule

    Instructions for in class presentations of your ENSC 835 final projects
    Instructions for writing ENSC 835 final project reports
    IEEE Author Center, Menu item: Create Your IEEE Article/IEEE Article Templates/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 (revised)
    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 2018
    FAQ in 2016
    FAQ in 2013
    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: Thu May 10 00:30:55 PDT 2018.