Course Content

  • Course Overview and Computer Networking Review (1 week)
    • Introduction To Paper Reading
    • A Brief History of the Internet
  • Internet Architecture And Design Principles (1 week)
    • The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols
    • Why the Internet only just works
    • End-to-End Arguments in System Design
    • Forty Data Communications Research Questions
  • Router Architecture (1 week)
    • A 50-Gb/s IP Router
    • Tag Switching Architecture Overview
    • The Design and Implementation of Open vSwitch
  • Datacenter Network (1 week)
    • FatTree, Scalable and Flexible Data Center Network
  • TCP/IP Architecture, End-host-based Resource Allocation (1 week)
    • Congestion Avoidance and Control
    • BBR
    • Data Center TCP
    • Multipath TCP
  • Software-defined Networks (2 week)
    • OpenFlow
    • B4: Google SDN-based WAN
    • SWAN: Microsoft SDN-based WAN
  • Programmable Networks (1 week)
    • RMT: Reconfigurable Match Tables
    • P4: Programming Protocol-Independent Packet Processors
  • Network Monitoring (1 week)
    • New Directions in Traffic Measurement and Accounting: Focusing on the Elephants, Ignoring the Mice
    • Language-Directed Hardware Design for Network Performance Monitoring
  • Load Balancing (1 week)
    • Stateful Layer-4 Load Balancing Using Switching ASICs
    • Cloud Scale Load Balancing with Hardware and Software
  • Network Security (1 week)
    • NetWarden
    • (Self) Driving Under the Influence: Intoxicating Adversarial Network Inputs
  • In-network Computing (1 week)
    • Microsoft SmartNIC
    • P4 with 5G User Plane Function

Learning Outcomes:

  1. This course will introduce students to research in computer networks.
  2. Students will be expected to read, review and present research papers
  3. Students will be required to carry out a semester-long research project.

The goal of this course is to provide students a flavor of several advanced topics in computer networking that will allow them to perform high-quality research in the area.

Text/Reference Books

  • Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, by James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross.
  • Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, by Larry Peterson and Bruce Davie.
  • https://sdn.systemsapproach.org/
  • http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p69-v38n2n-mckeown.pdf
  • https://wiki.onosproject.org/display/ONOS/ONOS

Past Offerings

Course Metadata

Item Details
Course Title Topics in Networks
Course Code CS5639
Course Credits 1-0-3-3
Course Category PME
Proposing Faculty Anish Hirwe
Approved on Senate 25 of IIT Palakkad
Course prerequisites Computer Networks