CPSC 641: Performance Issues in High Speed Networks

Professor Carey Williamson

January 2009

Lecture Materials

Slides, readings, and related lecture material will appear here gradually throughout the semester.

Week 1: Introduction and Overview

Course overview. Administrative details. General overview of networking concepts and terminology, Internet protocols, and Internet evolution. Discussion of networking research paradigms and computer systems performance evaluation methodologies. Project ideas.
Slides:
  Jan 13 Introduction and Course Overview (PowerPoint, 70 KB)
  Jan 13 Networking Research Topics (PowerPo int, 1.8 MB)
  Jan 15 Networking Basics and Internet Protocol Stack (PowerPoint, 85 KB)
  Jan 15 TCP Protocol (PowerPoint, 190 KB)
  Jan 15 HTTP Protocol (PowerPoint, 180 KB)

Week 2: Computer Systems Performance Evaluation

Introduction to the basic methodologies and terminology of performance evaluation, with examples. Analysis. Simulation. Experimentation. Graphical presentation of results.
Slides:
  Jan 20 Performance Evaluation 101 (Powe rPoint, 40 KB)
  Jan 20 Example 1: Router Buffer Management (Power Point, 23 KB)
              partitioned.c shared.c
  Jan 20 Example 2: Web Proxy Caching (PowerPoint, 25 KB)
  Jan 20 Example 3: Web Server Configuration (PDF, 420 KB)
  Jan 22 Performance Evaluation 201 (PowerPoint, 80 KB)

Week 3: TCP Protocol Performance

Transmission Control Protocol. TCP variants. TCP visualization. Analytical modeling of TCP throughput. TCP fluid flow modeling. TCP over wireless.
Slides:
  Jan 27 TCP Sequence Number Plots (PowerPoint, 220 KB)
              PDAtrace.dat conn1064.pdf conn1209.pdf
  Jan 27 TCP Performance Modeling (PDF, 350 KB)
  Jan 27 Wireless TCP Issues (PowerPoint, 1.1 MB)
  Jan 29 Guest lecture on fluid-flow modeling of TCP by Majid Ghaderi

Weeks 4 and 5: Wireless Networking

IEEE 802.11b Wireless Local Networks (WLANs). Wireless TCP performance issues. Wireless networking assumptions. Multi-hop wireless ad hoc networks. Wireless mesh networks. Fairness issues.
Slides:
  Feb 3 Project Brainstorming Ideas (PowerPoint, 68 KB)
  Feb 3 Introduction to Wireless Networking (PowerPoint, 164 KB)
  Feb 3 IEEE 802.11b Wireless LANs (PowerPoint, 100 KB)
  Feb 3 Wireless Networking Tutorial (PDF, 160 KB)
  Feb 5 IEEE 802.11b Throughput Analysis (Jun et al. paper)
  Feb 5 802.11b Efficiency (Excel file)
  Feb 5 Wireless TCP Fairness Issues (Pilosof et al. paper)
  Feb 10 TCP in Multi-hop Wireless Ad Hoc Networks
  Feb 10 Wireless Networking Assumptions (Kotz et al. paper)
  Feb 12 Campus Wireless LAN Usage (Henderson et al. paper)
  Feb 12 U of C Campus WLAN Traffic (Mahanti et al. paper)
  Feb 12 U of C WLAN Traffic Analysis (PowerPoint, 10 MB)

Reading Week Break (no lectures)

Week 6: Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Networks

ATM concepts. Cell-switching. ATM switch design. Quality of service. Protocol performance issues.
Slides:
  Feb 24 Introduction to ATM Networking (PowerPoint, 75 KB)
  Feb 24 Cell Networking (PowerPoint, 180 KB)
  Feb 24 ATM Signalling (PowerPoint, 320 KB)
  Feb 24 ATM Terminology (PowerPoint, 70 KB)
  Feb 24 ATM Adaptation Layer (AAL) Protocols (PowerPoint, 58 KB)
  Feb 26 ATM Switching Overview (PowerPoint, 55 KB)
  Feb 26 ATM Switch Architectures (PowerPoint, 95 KB)
  Feb 26 Switch Fabric Example (PowerPoint, 920 KB)
  Feb 26 ATM Traffic Management (PowerPoint, 480 KB)
  Feb 26 Connection Admission Control (PowerPoint, 130 KB)

Weeks 7 and 8: Network Traffic Measurement and Modeling

Network traffic measurement techniques. Network traffic self-similarity. LAN and WAN measurements. WLAN measurements. Internet traffic classification.
Slides:
  Mar 3 Network Traffic Measurement (PowerPoint, 58 KB)
  Mar 3 LAN Measurement Study (PowerPoint, 28 KB)
  Mar 3 WAN Measurement Study (PowerPoint, 35 KB)
  Mar 3 Internet Traffic Measurement (Internet Computing article 2001)
  Mar 5 Strategies for Sound Internet Measurement (Paxson IMC 2004)
  Mar 5 Challenges of Internet Application Measurement (IEEE Network article 2007)
  Mar 10 Network Traffic Self-Similarity (PowerPoint, 220 KB)
  Mar 10 Self-Similar LAN Traffic (PowerPoint, 31 KB)
  Mar 10 Self-Similar WAN Traffic (PowerPoint, 31 KB)
  Mar 10 Self-Similar Video Traffic (PowerPoint, 25 KB)
  Mar 12 Self-similarity (notes and demo)
  Mar 12 Multi-fractal Traffic Modeling (PowerPoint, 160 KB)
  Mar 12 Video Traffic Modeling (notes and demo)
  Mar 12 Modeling Internet Streaming Traffic (GISMO)

Weeks 9, 10, and 11: Student Presentations

Student presentations of selected papers from the networking literature.
  Mar 17 Wireless Networks I: Mohamed Elsersy and Wenying Zheng.
  Mar 19 Wireless Networks II: Shreya Maheshwar and Ali Dabirmoghaddam.
  Mar 24 Traffic Analysis and Classification: Ali Abedi and Marian Doerk.
  Mar 26 Network Applications: Hazem Gomaa and Kievan Kianmehr.
  Mar 31 Traffic Measurement and Characterization: Mishtu Banerjee and Song Zhang.
  Apr 2 Miscellaneous: Michael Haakstad and Mostafa Dehghan.

Weeks 12 and 13: Web and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Systems

Web performance issues. P2P architectures. P2P streaming. Analysis of P2P systems.
  Apr 7 Comparing Web and P2P Traffic
(WWW2008 paper (PDF, 4.0 MB) and slides (PowerPoint, 3.1 MB))
  Apr 9 P2P vs ISP Tussle
(IFIP Performance 2007 paper (PDF, 1.5 MB) and slides (PDF, 420 KB))
  Apr 14 Bit-Torrent Streaming
(ACM SIGMETRICS 2008 paper (PDF, 200 KB) and slides (PowerPoint, 1.1 MB))
  Apr 16 No class. Work on those projects!!! Due April 23.