High-Performance Networking

Course Description

EECS 881
3 credit hours

Comprehensive coverage of the discipline of high-bandwidth low-latency networks and communication, including high bandwidth-×-delay products, with and emphasis on principles, architecture, protocols, and system design. Topics include high-performance network architecture, control, and signalling; high-speed wired, optical, and wireless links; fast packet, IP, and optical switching; IP lookup, classification, and scheduling; network processors, end system design and protocol optimization, network interfaces; storage networks; end-to-end protocols, mechanisms, and optimizations; and high-bandwidth low-latency applications. Principles will be illustrated with many leading-edge and emerging protocols and architectures.

Prerequisites

EECS 780, 563, or 663.

Time and Location

EECS 881 meets one evening a week for three hours on the Edwards Campus in the western Kansas City suburb of Overland Park. A lab section session is scheduled on an additional evening and will meet as needed for introduction and guidance in completion of the ONL exercises, as well as for class make-up and exam reviews. See the individual course offering pages for detailed time and room information.

For Kansas City residents, this is 2.4 mi. south from the Quivera Road exit of the southwestern portion of the I-435 loop to 127th St. For Lawrence residents this is approximately 30 miles / 50 km east of the Lawrence Campus, a 40 minute drive mostly along the K-10 freeway. A parking permit is not needed on the Edwards Campus. The K-10 Connector bus is a service used by many students between the Lawrence and Edwards campuses.

Course Offerings

Detailed information about individual offerings of this course will be located on the following pages, including schedule and homework assignments.

• fall 2010: KU EECS 881 (planned for Edwards Campus)
• fall 2008: KU EECS 800 (Edwards Campus)
• fall 2006: KU EECS 800 (Edwards Campus)
• spring 2004: Universität der Bundeswehr München Germany graduate diploma-level intensive course
• 2002–2006: IEEE HotI conference tutorial
• 2003: IEEE MILCOM conference tutorial
• 2002: IEEE ICN/ICWHLN conference tutorial

Generic course information and the latest version of the lectures are located this page below.

Lectures and Readings

Note: this table is currently under reorganisation

Reading assignments: S = Sterbenz & Touch, C = Comer, V = Varghese, W = Welzl, K = Kurose & Ross

Textbooks

Required Textbooks

Important Notice: There are changes in the required and optional textbooks this year.

These textbooks and the corresponding required readings in the table are essential for success in this course. Students are responsible for knowing all of this material regardless of whether or not explicitly covered in lectures.

James P.G. Sterbenz and Joseph D. Touch,
High-Speed Networking: A Systematic Approach to High-Bandwidth Low-Latency Communication,
John Wiley, New York, 2001.
This book is also used for EECS 780

Douglas E. Comer,
Network Systems Design using Network Processors, Intel IXP 2xxx Version,
Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2006.

Optional Textbooks

These textbooks will contain optional reading assignments that should contribute significantly to your understanding of the material. In an effort to keep student costs down, they will be placed on library reserve, however students may find it more convenient to purchase their own copies.

George Varghese,
Network Algorithmics,
Morgan-Kaufmann Elsevier, 2005.

Michael Welzl,
Network Congestion Control,
John Wiley, Chichester UK, 2005.

Supplementary Textbooks

[RS2002]
Rajiv Ramaswami and Kumar N. Sivarajan,
Optical Networks: A Practical Perspective,
second edition, Morgan Kaufmann, 2002.

[J2003]
Thomas C. Jepsen,
Distributed Storage Networks: Architecture, Protocols and Management,
Wiley, 2003.

[TMK2006] Franco Travostino, Joe Mambretti, Gigi Karmous-Edwards, ed.,
Grid Networks: Enabling Grids with Advanced Communication Technology,
Wiley, 2006.

Background Textbook

This book is one of the textbooks used in EECS 780 and is an excellent source of background material for this course.

James F. Kurose and Keith F. Ross,
Computer Networking, third edition,
Pearson Addison Wesley, 2005.

Additional Readings

The readings in this section are listed with the lecture to which they correspond, before which all students must read the papers. Students may request a particular paper or topic in advance by email.

The presenting student should construct a presentation that takes 20 minutes to deliver without questions, with a maximum of 10 content foils (excluding title, outline, and reference foils). If you are inexperienced, you must practise to a mirror or friend until you've got the timing right. Significant points will be deducted for presentations that are too long. You should read the presentation guidelines before you create your presentation, and use the template as a basis for your presentation. You must not use font sizes smaller than this template, and are strongly urged to turn off auto shrink to fit to avoid font size problems. If you are an experienced presenter with a PowerPoint style you are comfortable using, or if you wish to use other programs to create your presentation, you may do so with prior approval only after I have seen a sample, and this must be done well in advance of your scheduled presentation. Otherwise, you must use the provided template. Presentations must be emailed the day before the scheduled delivery (by 23:59) in PDF (recommended) and PowerPoint source (unless we have agreed on another presentation tool) with a Subject: line beginning EECS881 - reading presentation: Once a presentation has been scheduled, it is not possible to reschedule for any reason other than emergency, to avoid disrupting the class schedule.

A one-half-hour time slot will be devoted to each presentation to allow for questions from other class members, which contributes to the participation grade.

[J2006]
“Juniper Networks Router Overview”
JUNOS Baseline Network Operations Guide, Juniper Networks,
2006, pp. 3–15

[J2008]
Multicast Architectures in Crossbar-Based Routers: Replication Choices and their Impact on Real-World HDTV, Juniper Networks,
white paper 200281, 2008