1. CSci 4211: Introduction to Computer Networks
Time: Monday and Wednesday 1:00 to 2:15 pm
Location: Tate Hall 101
Spring 2019, 3 Credits
Welcome to Csci 5211: data communications and computer networks. My name is Srihari and I am the instructor for this class. Lets start with the logistics of this class. I guess everybody knows the location and the timing of this class.

2. Instructor David Hung-Chang Du
Office: Keller Hall 4-225B for Office Horus
Phone:
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Once again, my name is Srihari. I am the instructor for this class. I graduated only last semester and so I am like a student. Hope that makes you comfortable. I taught this course last Fall also. So you are lucky to have an experienced teacher.
One more thing is that I am more comfortable responding to questions than lecturing. So please feel free to ask lots of questions. That way you can extract the best out of me. Also I have the tendency to speak fast. Please let me know when you want me slow down.
My office is in 6th floor in EE/CS room number 196. If you can’t make it during these office hours, you can schedule an appointment.

3. Teaching Assistant Feng Tian (tianx399@umn.edu) 25%
Rostand Amel Fezeu 50%
Office: KHKH 2-209
(TA Office)
Office Hours:
Feng Tian : Thursday 1 to 2 pm
Rostand Fezeu: Tuesday 2:45 to 3:45 pm
Friday 1 to 2 pm
Wondering why so many TAs. I am teaching both day and evening sections of this course. I will be covering the same material . So you can contact any of these TAs for any problems/questions. We plan to schedule our office hours such that you can get help for two hours on each working day.

4. Attendance Sheet If your name appears, please initial it
Otherwise, write the following information
Name
Student ID
Registered or Waiting
Grading basis
Class/year (grad, senior, junior etc.)
Major (CS, CE, EE etc.)
address
I will be circulating an attendance sheet. It has a list of registered students and also those in the waiting list. If your name appears, please put your initial beside the name. Otherwise please write the following information.
Make sure that you list your name in this sheet. Please don’t forget. Based on the attendance only we figure out how many dropped and how many can be admitted.

5. Admission to the Class Students who have registered
If thinking of dropping, please decide soon
If room available, those in the waiting list will be admitted in the following order
CS,CE graduate students,
Outside department students, others
Note that 4211 is now only for undergraduate students
Admitted student list will be posted on the web and get the magic number from CS front desk
I guess this is the most relevant part of logistics. There is a big waiting list and also I have received quite a few s requesting magic numbers.
So those students who have registered and thinking of dropping, please make up your mind soon. While I encourage you to stay, if you are not serious, please decide soon. It helps other interested students in the waiting list. If there is room, those in the waiting list will be admitted in the following order. This prioritization done by the department. It is their policy to follow this ordering.
Based on how many registered students did not attend this class, we will decide how many if any in the waiting list to be let in. We will post the names on the web in couple of days. If your name is listed there, you can go to the front desk and get the magic number. Just make sure that you register this week itself.

6. Scholastic Conduct
See the policy in the appropriate college bulletin. Students are encouraged to discuss with classmates and to help each other learn and understand course material. However, you should not go beyond the boundaries of the individual responsibility.
Any academic misconduct will be reported.

7. What is CSci 4211 about? An introductory computer networking course
Fundamental principles and general concept
Not survey of existing protocol standards
How does Internet work?
Focus on network software architecture
Only discuss some relevant network hardware
Some hands-on experiences (via projects)
No queuing theory
Now something about the contents of this course. This course is about general purpose computer networks not specialized networks such as telephone networks or cable networks. Though we can connect to the internet using telephone lines and cable modems, we will be focusing on data networks.
Computer networking is very complex area. There so many technologies, protocols and abbreviations. In this course, we will be stressing more on fundamental concepts rather than details of existing protocol standards.
Also our focus is on the software architecture and not on hardware. Particularly for us the specifics physical media are not very important. We are interested only their logical characteristics such as bandwidth, loss rate etc
Finally we discuss how different components of the network system work together and how to design and build such a system. Though queuing theory is very central to any service system such as a network, there are other courses that deal with this subject

8. Course Materials Required textbook Recommended references
Computer Networking by Jim Kurose and Keith Ross, Addison Wiley, the 7th Edition (or other versions)
Website:
Recommended references
Computer Networks by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Prentice Hall, 4th Edition, 2002
Computer Networks and Internets by Douglas E. Comer, Prentice Hall, 2nd Edition, 1998
The main text book is Computer Networks by Tanenbaum. You may want to make sure you have the right edition since I will be referring to the chapters and sections in 3rd edition of this book. This is standard textbook and likely that you will find a used copy easily.
There are two other good books. You are highly encouraged to refer to these books also. Computer networking by Jim Kurose and Keith Ross treats it differently from Tanenbaum book. It describes the layers from application down to physical while Tanenbaum goes up from physical to application. Comer’s computer networks and internets is also very good book. Its easy to read and has smaller chapters which I like.
On top of this we will be posting relevant links and material on the web.

9. Class Information
Lecture Notes
Posted on website a day before the class
Bulletin Board
Participate in the discussions actively
Announcements
Check the web page periodically
Class Mailing List:
Help Hot Line:
Please take a note of the class website. All the class information is available on this web site. We will be posting lecture notes on the web at least a day before the class. We plan to minimize the amount of material handed out in the class. So please check the web site and print the relevant material before coming to the class.
We have a bulletin board for the class. Please post all your general questions there. So that others can also answer and benefit from the replies. You can also initiate any interesting discussions relevant to the course. Please participate in the discussions actively.
Also there is an announcements section where we will post all the notices. Things like availability of new material on the site. Please check the web page periodically.

10. Course Prerequisites
A rudimentary understanding of computer architecture, and operating systems would be helpful
Basic probability theory may be needed to understand some performance analysis
Programming experience in C or other languages
Two programming projects
You need computer account at IT or grad labs
You don’t need much of background for this course. It helps if you have some understanding of computer architecture and operating systems. But you can manage otherwise too I think. There are some parts of the course where we will be using probability theory to analyze the performance of some schemes. So its good if you have some basic probability theory background. But if you pay attention during the lecture, you should do ok.
One thing that is necessary for this course is programming experience in C. We will have four programming projects and all are in C. So it may be difficult for you if don’t know C programming. For doing the projects you need a computer account in IT or grad labs. Its fine as long as you have access to UNIX machines and your demos work on our machines.
How many of you don’t know C programming? Even C++ should be fine. I assume you can manage C if you know C++.

11. Course Requirements and Workload
Five to six homework assignments (20%)
One or two programming projects (15%)
Details will be announced later
Based on socket Programming
One midterm exam (30%)
Date will be decided later; roughly 7th week
One final exam (35%): May 11th (Saturday) 8:00 to 10:00 am
This should give you an idea of the work load. We will have four written assignments. Each of them carry 5% points.
We will have four programming projects. These projects are tentative. I might change them based on how the course progresses. The first one would be on developing a simple program that allows two users to talk to each other. The second would be on emulating the functionality of Ethernet hub and bridge. The third one would be on interconnecting these LANs using routers. The last one would be on TCP emulation.
Each project builds upon the previous one. For example, the code written for chat client/server would be used in bridge emulation. Similarly router project would need bridge code. Here each project carries 5% points. Please don’t get scared from the number of projects. You don’t have to code them from scratch. You will be given template code where you need to just fill in the relevant parts.
I believe you learn better by actually doing than just reading. That’s why I chose to include projects that illustrate some basic concepts.
We will have one midterm exam and one final exam. The midterm is for 25% and the final is for 35%. So put together homeworks are 20%, projects 20%, midterm 25%, and final 35%.

12. Policies and Guidelines
No late homework or project
Hand in during classes or drop off in 4-225B by the mid-night of due date
Make-up exam
Only for those who have legitimate reasons (e.g. conflict of finals etc.)
Incomplete
Not granted unless proof of emergency
Need to fill “Agreement for Incomplete” form
Please remember that no late homework or project would be accepted. All the assignments and projects must be submitted by the due date and time. You can either them to a TA or drop them off in
If you have any serious problem meeting the deadline, please contact me in advance. If you have any questions about the grading or if you think your homework is lost, please contact us within two weeks.
Make-up is conducted only for those who have legitimate reasons. Once again please notify us in advance so that we can make arrangements. Incompletes are not given in general. But if you have a serious emergency you should show the proof to get an incomplete. Our department requires that you fill out an agreement for incomplete form.

13. Tentative Schedule Week 1 1. Computer Networks and Internet Week 2
Chapter 1 Continued
Week 3 & 4
2. Application Layer
Week 5
3. Transport Layer
Week 6
Chapter 3 Continued
Week 7
4. Network Layer: Data Plane
Mid-Term
Week 8 & 9
Chapter 5: Network Layer: Control Plane
Week 10
5. Link Layer and LANs
Here is the schedule. We have a total of 16 weeks. After 8 weeks, we have midterm. This class we will start with the introduction to networking. Next week I will give an overview of Internet protocol suite. This is helpful in doing the project. We will also go over application programming interface that is used write applications that communicate. We will be using BSD sockets. All this should make you ready to do the first project.
In week 3, we will cover data link layer. We will talk about framing and error control. The next three lectures would be on local area networks and media access control. We will talk about Ethernet, Token Ring etc. Also on how to extend LANs using bridges. The project2 on bridges would be handed out during week 6. We will cover physical layer and different transmission media. We will also have a review of all that is covered up week 7. The midterm exam will be in week 8. One class in week 8, we will spend on the overview of network layer.

14. Tentative Schedule (cont’d)
Week 11
Chapter 6 Continued
Week 12
Additional Network Architectures
Week 13
Chapter 7. Wireless and Mobile Networks
Week 14
Chapter 7: Continued
Week 15
Future Networks and Final Review
Week 16
Final Exam
May 11th 8:00 to 10:00 am
After the midterm, the next three weeks will be on network layer. We will discuss different routing protocols and algorithms. We will be using the internet protocol, IP as a case study. We will also briefly discuss ATM.
The next three weeks would be on transport layer. Once again we will be focusing on the transport protocol used in the internet, TCP as a case study. We will cover how congestion/flow control is done in TCP.
We will talk about the application layer in week 14. Here we will cover web protocol http, protocol smtp etc.
Finally I will discuss some of the areas of research that you can follow up on after this course. We will also review all that is covered in this course in week 16.