Lecture Materials

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

Introduction and Overview (1 week)

Course overview. Administrative details. Overview of the Internet and its classic TCP/IP protocol stack. The evolving Internet.

Slides:
  Jan 11: Introduction and Course Overview (PPT, PDF) Networking Basics (PPT, PDF)
  Jan 13: HTTP Review (PPT, PDF) TCP Review (PPT, PDF) HTTP and TCP (PPT, PDF)
  Example: TCP trace TCP trace annotated

Computer Systems Performance Evaluation (2 weeks)

Introduction to the basic methodologies of performance evaluation, with examples. Experimental methods. Simulation methods. Analytical methods. Data visualization and graphical presentation of results.

Slides:
  Jan 18: Performance Evaluation (PPT, PDF) Experimental Measurement; Data Analysis and Presentation (PPT, PDF)
  Jan 20: Simulation (PPT, PDF) pi.c cards.c teensim.c parksim.c Validation (PPT, PDF)
  Jan 25: Statistics (PPT, PDF) Markov Chains (PPT, PDF) teen.c
  Jan 27: Queueing Theory (PPT, PDF) More Queueing Theory (PPT, PDF)
  Example: Free Live Streaming (PDF)
  Example: Instagram Study (PDF)
  Example: D2L Measurement Study (PDF)
  Example: Router Buffer Management (PPT, PDF) partitioned.c shared.c
  Example: Web Proxy Caching (PPT, PDF)
  Example: Saturation Effects in Speed Scaling Systems (PDF)
  Example: Cheating at Craps: A Quantitative Analysis (PDF)

TCP Performance (1 week)

TCP variants. TCP performance modeling. TCP sequence number plots. Multi-path TCP. QUIC. BBR.

Slides:
  Feb 1: TCP Sequence Number Plots (PPT, PDF) WebPDA.pdf PDAtrace conn1064a conn1064b conn1209 conn1223
  Feb 3: TCP Performance Analysis TCP Reno (Padhye 1998) TCP NewReno (Parvez 2010) Compound TCP Multi-Path TCP

Network Traffic Measurement and Modeling (2 weeks)

Internet measurement. Network traffic measurement techniques. Network traffic self-similarity. LAN and WAN measurements. WLAN measurements.

Slides:
  Feb 8: Network Traffic Measurement (PPT, PDF) LAN Traffic (PPT, PDF) WAN Traffic (PPT, PDF)
  Feb 10: Instagram Study (PPT, PDF) 360-degree Video Streaming Study (PPT)
  Feb 15: Network Traffic Self-Similarity (PPT, PDF)
  Feb 17: Free Live Streaming (PPT) Zoom Session Quality (PPT)
  Example 1: Internet Traffic Measurement (IEEE Internet Computing 2001)
  Example 2: Strategies for Sound Internet Measurement (ACM IMC 2004)
  Example 3: Network Traffic Self-similarity (ACM SIGCOMM 1993)
  Example 4: Internet Application Measurement (IEEE Network 2007)
  Example 5: Power-Laws in Internet Measurements (IEEE Network 2013)
  Example 6: Instagram Traffic Measurements (IEEE MASCOTS 2019)
  Example 7: Mobile Streaming Traffic Measurements (ICPE 2020)
  Example 8: Free Live Streaming (FLS) Traffic Measurements (PAM 2021)
  Example 9: Spotify Traffic Measurements (CPSC 503)
  Example 10: Zoom Traffic Measurements (PAM 2022)

Reading Week Break (Feb 21-25) No Lectures

Wireless Networks (1 week)

IEEE 802.11b Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). Wireless TCP performance issues. Wireless ad hoc networks.

Slides:
  Mar 1: Wireless Networking (PPT, PDF) WiFi (PPT, PDF) Wireless TCP Issues (PPT, PDF)
  Mar 3: Wireless Network Performance Issues; Campus WLAN Measurement Studies
  Example 1: WiFi TCP Fairness (Pilosof et al. paper, IEEE INFOCOM 2003)
  Example 2: Campus WLAN Traffic (Kotz et al. paper ACM MOBICOM 2002)
  Example 3: More Campus WLAN Traffic (Henderson et al. paper ACM MOBICOM 2004)
  Example 4: U of C WLAN Traffic (PPT, PDF)
  Example 5: BiMCMAC Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks (PPT)

Student Presentations (3 weeks)

  Mar 8: TCP Congestion Control
      Soroosh: TCP Congestion Signatures (ACM IMC 2017)
      Carey: The Great Internet TCP Congestion Control Census (ACM SIGMETRICS 2020)
  Mar 10: Cloud and Mobile
      Amir: Zooming in on Wide-area Latencies to a Global Cloud Provider (ACM SIGCOMM 2019)
      Michael: Understanding the Networking Performance of Wear OS (ACM SIGMETRICS 2019)
  Mar 15: Internet in China
      Sadaf: Characterizing Transnational Internet Performance and the Great Bottleneck of China (ACM SIGMETRICS 2020)
      Xue Kai: A Measurement Study of Wechat Mini-Apps (ACM SIGMETRICS 2021)
  Mar 17: Video Streaming
      Navid: Timber: An SDN-Based Emulation Platform for Experimental Research on Video Streaming (IEEE JSAC July 2020)
      Akram: Measuring the Performance and Network Utilization of Popular Video Conferencing Applications (ACM IMC 2021)
  Mar 22: Societal Issues
      Quinn: On Ride Sharing Competition and Accessibility: Evidence from Uber, Lyft, and Taxi (WWW 2018)
      Niloofar: A Characterization of the COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on a Mobile Network Operator Traffic (ACM IMC 2020)
  Mar 24: Pandemic Effects
      Amirhossein: The Lockdown Effect: Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Internet Traffic (ACM IMC 2020)
      Mehdi: Zoomiversity: A Case Study of Pandemic Effects on Post-Secondary Teaching and Learning (PAM 2022)

Hot Topics in Networking (2 weeks)

Selected topics, based on student interest. Cloud computing. Data center networks. Software-Defined Networking (SDN). Multimedia streaming. HTTP/2.0. Mobile computing. Online social networks. Network security. Energy-efficient networking. Wireless sensor networks. Internet of Things.

  Mar 29: Cloud Computing
      Overview   Amazon EC2 Study (ACM TOMPECS) (slides: PPT, PDF)  
  Mar 31: Data Centers
      Overview   Data Center Networks (PPT, PDF)   DC-TCP (ACM SIGCOMM 2010)   Google's DC Network (ACM SIGCOMM 2015)
  Apr 5: Software-Defined Networking (SDN)
      SDN Overview (PPT, PDF)   B4: Google's SDN WAN (ACM SIGCOMM 2013)   B4 and After (ACM SIGCOMM 2018) slides
  Apr 7: Internet of Things (IoT)
      Overview + Intro to IoT + IoT Security Issues + Smart Toys (paper, video)
  Apr 12: Last day of class! In-person in ST 125: class photo, cupcakes, course wrapup, and closing remarks.