CPS514: Computer Networks/Distributed Systems Syllabus

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Textbooks

There are no official texts for the course. As background, we suggest several texts:

• Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, third edition, by Larry Peterson and Bruce Davie. It is available in the CMU Bookstore. Covers background networking material that we assume students will already be familiar with.
• Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet, 3rd edition, by James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross. Covers similar material to Peterson and Davie.
• TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols by W. Richard Stevens.
• Unix Network Programming: Networking APIs: Sockets and XTI (Volume 1) by W. Richard Stevens.
• Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment by W. Richard Stevens, Addison-Wesley, 1993.

Grading

Your final grade for the course will be based on the following weights:

• 40% Project
• 30% Quizzes
• 25% Homework
• 5% Class Participation

The quizzes will be in-class, one near midterm and one near the end of the semester.

The project in CPS514 is an open-ended research project, done in groups of two. The project requires a proposal, a project status report, and a final report (both written and presented).

There will be a few problem sets assigned during the term that will constitute 25% of your grade. Problem sets will be a mix of theory and hands-on programming assignments.

Schedule

Date	Topics	Notes	Readings
Part 1: Internetworking
Fri 01/11	Content delivery networks I. [ppt]		Akamai Network
Wed 01/16	Content delivery networks II.
Fri 01/18	Intro: History and context and packet switching. [ppt]		darpa-internet
Wed 01/23	Names and Addresses: Hierarchical and Flat. I [ppt]		DNS
Fri 01/25	Names and Addresses: Hierarchical and Flat. II
Wed 01/30	Intradomain Topology and Routing [ppt]		ROUTING1, ROUTING2
Fri 02/01	Interdomain Routing [ppt]
Wed 02/06	Interdomain Routing. II [ppt]
Fri 02/08	Multihoming and Multi-path Routing [ppt]		Deflections, RFC
Wed 02/13	Router Design [ppt]		50GB
Fri 02/15	Routing Overlays [ppt]		RON, RFC
Wed 02/20	MPLS and VPNs [ppt]
Wed 02/27	Software-Defined Networking [ppt]
Part 2: Distributed Systems
Fri 03/01	Content Overlays [ppt]		Chord, FreeNet
Wed 03/06	Content Overlays II [ppt]		BitTorrent
03/08 - 03/18	Spring Break
Fri 03/20	Download Manager/NetSession [ppt]
Fri 03/22	Cryptography Basics [ppt]
Wed 03/27	NFS & AFS [ppt]
Fri 03/29	Mid Term
Wed 04/03	S3 [ppt]
Fri 04/05	Map Reduce [ppt]		MPR GFS
Wed 04/10	Akamai Stories [ppt]
Fri 04/12	Skype [ppt]		SK
Wed 04/17	Project presentation