Course: CISC856 TCP/IP & Upper Layer Protocols - SYLLABUS
Professor: Paul D. Amer
Office: 434 Smith Hall
Office Hours: T: 11am-12;Th; 2-3pm
Phone: 831-1944 (office); 540-8840 (cell, for urgent matters please)
Email: amer@cis.udel.edu Course URL: www.cis.udel.edu/~amer/CISC856/
Semester: Fall 2012
Class Times: T, Th; 12:30-1:45pm
Last Updated: 8/27/12
Course Description: CISC856 focuses on advanced principles
and techniques employed in the network layer and above. Emphasis is placed
on the Internet's TCP/IP protocol suite. In the first five weeks,
the professor overviews the general framework of TCP/IP, discussing details
not covered fully in CISC650 for protocols up to and including the transport
layer. In the next five weeks, students will present official or
important proposed draft TCP/IP protocol standards. The remaining
weeks are dedicated to experimental protocols, e.g., the Stream Control
Transmission Protocol (SCTP), an up-and-coming transport layer protocol.
CISC856 is an advanced graduate level course taught in seminar-discussion
fashion. Students are responsible to be proactive in their
learning. The professor's role is less directive and more one of
stimulating and guiding learning by managing the topics discussed and monitoring
the quality of presentations.
Course Prerequisites
-
CISC450/650: Computer Networks, or equivalent (strictly enforced).
It is assumed that Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring
the Internet, by Kurose and Ross; Computer Networks, by Tanenbaum;
or an equivalent networking textbook has been studied in depth, and that
students possess strong knowledge of the concepts within the data link,
network, and transport layers.
-
Students are assumed to have a mature knowledge of architecture, operating
systems, programming, and probability.
Text
-
(required) Behrouz Forouzan. TCP/IP Protocol Suite, 4th
edition. McGraw-Hill, Boston, MA, 2006.
Powerpoint slides for the previous (i.e., 3rd edition) are located
here.
(Powerpoint slides are not yet available for the 4th edition.)
-
(required) "The
Transport Layer: Survey and Tutorial," by Sami Iren, Paul Amer, and
Phillip Conrad. ACM Computing Surveys, 31(4), Dec 1999
-
(required) "The
Transmission Control Protocol," by Wael Noureddine and Fouad Tobagi
(Stanford U), July 2002
-
(required) selected RFCs and Internet Drafts that are available from www.rfc-editor.org
-
(suggested) W. Richard Stevens. TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1:
The Protocols. Professional Computing Series. Addison-Wesley, Reading,
MA, 1994. Errata for earlier printings can be found at here
Assignments
-
Midterm and Final Exams (40%): Two exams cover class presentations,
homeworks, and assigned readings. The final exam is not comprehensive.
-
Homework Assignments (35%): In the first
half of the semester, homework questions (15%) are assigned from the end of chapters
in the textbook. Also there will be two homeworks (HW1, HW2)
involving hands-on monitoring experiments using
Wireshark (5%). In the second half of the semester, there
will be one homework assignment per student presentation, roughly 15 assignments (15%).
Student assignments will involve end of texbook chapter questions, and/or
monitoring TCP/IP network traffic using Wireshark.
- For all Homework Assignments, students are expected to work in groups of 2. Only with
the professor's permission may a student work individually. Each
student in a group is individually responsible for all of the material.
Groups may change at anytime. With groups,
all exercises involving hands-on monitoring experiments using
Wireshark must be done by both students together. That is, both
students must be physically present together during the experiment.
-
On-Line Quizzes (5%): Every chapter with homework questions has a required an on-line quiz to be taken.
-
For these quizzes, each student must work alone, and email his/her individual results
to the professor.
The quizzes
are located here.
- Course Project (20%): Each student is expected to become an expert
on a protocol of her/his choice. The project
has two graded components:
-
designing and delivering a class Powerpoint presentation (15%)
-
designing and correcting a homework assignment completed by the other students (5%).
Grading
My philosophy is that grades, in part, indicate relative performance. Hence final grades will be assigned according
to a curve. In addition to the curve, certain grade guarantees are
defined below. For example, a student earning 84% of the total course
points is guaranteed to receive a grade no less than B.
A |
A- |
B+ |
B |
B- |
C+ |
C |
C- |
D+ |
D |
D- |
93% |
90% |
86.7% |
83.3% |
80% |
76.7% |
73.3% |
70% |
66.7% |
63.3% |
60% |
In the subjective opinion of the professor, if the above scale does
not fairly represent the class' achievement as a whole, the scale may be
altered, but only in the students' favor (e.g., lowering the threshold
for an A- from 90% to 89%). Any adjustment will apply to all students.
Borderline cases can be influenced positively by exam scores and class
participation. As CISC856 is a seminar class, each student is expected
to actively participate by asking meaningful questions, and volunteering
relevant observations. Each student is expected to attend all classes,
or provide valid excuse for being absent.
For protocol presentation and
homework assignments, letter grades will be assigned. The letter grades
will be converted to percentage values as follows:
A+ |
100% |
Outstanding; exceeds normal expectations |
A |
96% |
Excellent; meets all expectations |
A- |
92% |
Excellent; meets all expectations with minor flaws |
B+ |
88% |
Very good; sufficient with room for improvement |
B |
85% |
Good; sufficient with some flaws and some redeeming features |
B- |
82% |
Sufficient, but flaws make this work barely acceptable |
C+ |
78% |
Below acceptable graduate level |
Finally, a philosophical note on grades. I do the best I can in measuring
how much course material you demonstrate that you know. This evaluation
is done through assignments and tests. I do not attempt to grade intelligence.
I do not grade based on how many hours you put into the course.
Lateness Policy: Unexcused late assignments will be penalized
up to 10% of the earned points per day including weekends up to a 3-day maximum penalty
of 30%. Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date, and are consider late once class
begins. Assignments will not
be accepted more than three days late without a written university-approved excuse or
prior discussion with the professor.
No more than two late assignments will be accepted from a student.
Academic Honesty: Students in one group are PROHIBITED
from accessing or comparing homework answers with those of any other student (past
or present, alive or dead(!)) prior to submitting the assignment.
Students may not use any web site that contains answers to the textbook questions.
In particular, the publisher provides an answer key to all of the odd-numbered
homework questions. Students are not permitted to access this
answer key. If you do not have sufficient time to complete an assignment,
then submit partial solutions. Do not get answers or compare answers
from someone else. Students who get answers from outside including the
use of the publisher's answer key, or who compare answers with other groups
prior to submission should be keenly aware that in this class, they are
acting dishonestly, and if caught, will be prosecuted according to University
guidelines. This prosecution applies both to a student who gets answers
and a student who gives answers.
Laptops and Cell Phones
I love my job teaching at UD, and promise to work extremely
hard to make this class exciting and challenging.
In return, I expect your full attention in class.
I believe cell phone texting and the use of a laptop for doing other class assignments,
reading email, playing video games, visiting Facebook, etc.,
while someone is working to educate you is as rude as it gets, and I will be
personally offended.
At the beginning of class, turn off your cell phone, and close your laptop.
Thank you.