Instructor:     Prof. Hung Q. Ngo
            Office: 238 Bell Hall
            Office Hours: Th 10:00-12:00
            Phone: 645-3180 x 160
            Email: hungngo {at} cse {dot} buffalo {dot} edu

Teaching Assistants: 
				Mr. Dazhen Pan
            Office: Trailer x
            Office Hours:
            Phone:
            Email: dpan {at} cse {dot} buffalo {dot} edu

Course Description:

This is a graduate-level networking course. The course aim to cover contemporary topics in networking, including but not limited to: the past, present, and future of the Internet's architecture, network security, exploring and measuring the Internet, P2P networking, ad hoc networking, sensor networks, switching and routing, integrated and differentiated services, multimedia networking, optical networking, and wireless networking. The actual list of topics to be lectured on is to be chosen at the instructor's discretion. Thus, they might vary from semester to semester.

A major component of the course is a research project to be conducted by students in groups of at most 3 students each. Progress reports and presentations are required throughout the semester. Peer-review and paper-review are other components of the course. Students will obtain major skills of doing research in computer networking. Ideally, the researh projects should develop into conference papers.

• Have fun learning!
• Give a good view of contemporary networking, past and current trends, future research issues in networking.

Prerequisites:

knowledge of probability and statistics for network analysis, a good grasp of basic networking, mathematical maturity in general.

At the end of this course, each student should be able to:

• Have a good overall picture of computer networking in general and the Internet in particular.
• Be able to identify research problems in networking, have a good idea of how to go about solving them.
• Improve research skills significantly, from critical thinking, problem solving, to writing and presentation.

References:

• Almost all reading materials will be provided on the class' website.
• The following books cover some background materials
  • James F. F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross, "Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet", 3nd edition, Addison Wesley; 3 edition (May 13, 2004), 848pp.
  • Andrew Tanenbaum, Computer Networks Prentice Hall PTR; 4 edition (August 9, 2002), 912pp.
  • Douglas E. Comer, "Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume 1: Principles, Protocols, and Architectures", 4th edition, Prentice Hall, Feb 2000.
  • Paul Albitz and Cricket Liu, " DNS and BIND " , O'Reilly & Associates, May 2001
  • Simson Garfinkel and Gene Spafford, " Practical UNIX and Internet Security ", O'Reilly & Associates, October 1995
  • Leonard Kleinrock, " Queueing Systems: Theory, Vol. 1 ", Wiley, John & Sons, January 1975
  • Leonard Kleinrock (Editor) " Queueing Systems Volume 2: Computer Applications ", Wiley, John & Sons, April 1976
  • W. Richard Stevens and Gary R. Wright, "The TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols", Addison Wesley Longman, Dec 1993, ISBN: 0201633469
  • W. Richard Stevens and Gary R. Wright, "The TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2: The Implementation", Addison Wesley Longman, Jan 1995, ISBN: 020163354X
  • Morris H. DeGroot, Mark J. Schervish, "Probability and Statistics", Addison Wesley; 3 edition (October 10, 2001), 816pp.
  • Rick Durrett, "Essentials of stochastic processes", Springer; 1 edition (July 30, 1999), 281pp.
  • Ronald W. Wolff, "Stochastic modeling and the theory of queues", Prentice Hall (January 31, 1989), 560pp

Class homepage:

        http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~hungngo/classes/2005/620/

Work load:

• Heavy! So, start early!!
• Approx. 80 pages of assigned reading per week
• Summary of papers due (almost) every week
• Research proposal review
• Final research project review
• Research project: implementations, reports and presentations.

Grading policy:

• Research project (60%)
• Paper summaries (15%)
• Research reviews (20%)
• Class participation (5%) - this includes participation in lectures and classmates' presentations
• No incompletes will be given

Academic Honesty:

• No tolerance on plagiarism:
  • 0 on the first attempt
  • Fail the course on the second
  • Consult the University Code of Conduct for details on consequences of academic misconduct
  • See also Prof. Shapiro's page on Academic Integrity of the CSE department: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~shapiro/Courses/integrity.html
• Group study/discussion is encouraged, but the submission (of paper summaries) must be your own work
• If you take materials from somewhere, cite the source! Taking intellectual property is stealing!
• I will take cheating VERY VERY seriously. Don't waste your time begging!!

Misc. Items:

• Absolutely no lame excuses please, such as "I have to go home early, allow me to take the test on Dec 1", or "I had a fight with my girlfriend, which effects my performance", blah blah blah. Even when they are true, they are still lame.
• No extra work in the next semester given to improve your grade.
• Remember: taking this class to fullfil the M.S. project requirement is not the reason to have a B. This is the risk you chose to take.