Advanced Networking - Spring 2021

Instructor: Antonio Carzaniga
Assistant: Ali Fattaholmanan
Type of course: lecture
Lecture schedule: Monday 8:30-10:30, Wednesday 12:30-14:30
See the course weekly schedule for details and updates
Instructors' Office Hours: by appointment
Assistants' Office Hours: by appointment

Objectives and Contents

This course covers advanced topics in computer networks, with a blend of theoretical and practical topics. On the theoretical side, the syllabus will cover mathematical foundations of networking, including discussions of queuing theory, information theory, simulation, and optimization. Each theoretical topic will be presented together with an application in networking (e.g., random walks, network design, traffic engineering). On the practical side, the syllabus will cover concepts and designs related to modern network architectures and technologies (e.g., data-center networks, software-defined networks, data plane programming), and protocols at various levels (e.g., HTTP/2, IPSec, MPLS, DCTCP). Students will gain hands-on experience with topics discussed in class through a series of exercises using network simulators and emulators.

Textbooks

• Mathematical Foundations of Computer Networking by Srinivasan Keshav, published by Addison-Wesley Professional.
• Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach by James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross, published by Addison-Wesley.

Links

Additional information is available through the following links and pages.

• Policies - including evaluation criteria and communications.
• Lecture recordings.

Lectures and Material

• Introduction to Advanced Networking
  Material: slides used in class
• Recap on Basic Networking Concepts: Network architecture, application protocols, TCP, datagram network service, router architecture, forwarding, routing, and in particular link-state routing.
  Material: slides used in class
• Network Emulation and Mininet: Network namespaces; basic network configurations using direct manipulation of interfaces, links, and routing tables; mininet. Automatic creation of a complex network topology.
  Material: lecture notes
• Traffic Engineering: Flow problems; linear programming; whole-flow optimization; integer linear programming; randomized routing schemes.
• Random Walks and Sampling: Graph model; Monte-Carlo simulation; analytic solutions; design and optimization.
  Material: notes on random walks witeh IP forwarding
• Network Modeling and Simulation: Packet-level modeling and simulation. Discrete-event simulation.
• Queuing Models and Theory: Basics of queueing models; basic results in queuing theory; Little's theorem and applications; Poisson processes; analysis of an M/M/1 queue and applications; statistical multiplexing.
• Network and Communication Security: Basics of communication security; modern cryptography and provable security; basics of symmetric cryptography; basics of public-key cryptography; concrete protocols and systems: IPSec.
• Advanced Architectures and Protocols: The modern Web: HTTP/2; the future Web: HTTP/3? Data-center networking: architectures and protocols; DCTCP; Timely.
• Programmable Networks: SDN: programming the control plane: the OpenFlow interface. Programmable data plane: P4.
• Advanced Topics in Networking: Student seminars.