CSC424 Computer Networks

ECE534/634 Communication Networks

Introduction

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 Basic Info
• Class time: Tuesday/Thursday 11am–12:15pm
• Location: McArthur Engineering Building 237
• Instructor: Prof. Mingzhe Chen
• Office: Room 412, McArthur Engineering
Building
• Email: mingzhe.chen@miami.edu
• Office hours: Tuesday/Thursday 1:00pm –
2:00pm

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 Textbook and References
• Textbook
– Computer Networks, 5th Edition, Andrew
Tanenbaum and David Wetherall, Pearson, 2011

• Other reference
– Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, 5th
Edition, James Kurose and Keith Ross, Addison-
Wesley, 2010.

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 Grading
• Homework assignments - 30%
• Projects - 25%
– Socket programming (15%)
– Network protocols (10%)

• Midterm - 20%
• Final Exam - 20%

• Attendance/Participation – 5%
– Pop quizzes

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 Course Policies
• Class Attendance Policy
– Classroom participation and attendance
constitutes 5% of the final score. A random
number of in-class pop quizzes will be randomly
conducted throughout the semester, which also
serve as a way to take attendance. Missing more
than 3 pop quizzes (without excuse) will result in 0
participate score. Missing all pop quizzes (without
excuses) will result in a failure of this course.

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 Course Policies
• Class Attendance Policy
– If at some point in the semester you cannot
physically attend class sessions due to illness,
injury, isolation, or other approved absence, you
must contact the instructor. Unexcused absences
from the classroom may affect your grade or lead
to failing the course.

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 Course Policies
• Academic Ethics
– Academic dishonesty in any form will not be
tolerated. The instructor of this course supports
the University of Miami Honor Code. Cheating,
plagiarism, or other forms of academic dishonesty
in this course is subject to the provisions of the
Honor Code.

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 Course Policies
• Class Recordings
– Students are expressly prohibited from recording any part
of this course. Meetings of this course might be recorded
by the University. Any recordings will be available to
students registered for this class as they are intended to
supplement the classroom experience. Students are
expected to follow appropriate University policies and
maintain the security of passwords used to access
recorded lectures. Recordings may not be reproduced,
shared with those not in the class, or uploaded to other
online environments. If the instructor or a University of
Miami office plans any other uses for the recordings,
beyond this class, students identifiable in the recordings
will be notified to request consent prior to such use.

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 What is a Network?
• An infrastructure that allows (distributed)
“users” to communicate with each other
– People, devices, …
– By means of voice, video, text, …
– Focus on electrical/optical/RF/… (not vehicles)

• It is assumed that the infrastructure is shared

by many users
– Point to point link is not very interesting
– The value of a network increases with the number
of users
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 Focus of the course

“Networking” topics
Applications Distributed Systems
Packets Networking We are here
Signals Communications

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 Network Components
app

node

link
(host) (router) (router) (host)

Components Function Example

Application, or app, user Uses the network Skype, iTunes, Amazon
Host, or end-system, edge Supports apps Laptop, mobile, desktop
device, node, source, sink
Router, or switch, node, hub, Relays messages Access point, cable/DSL
intermediate system between links modem
Link, or channel Connects nodes Wires, wireless
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 Types of Links
• Simplex
– Unidirectional
– E.g. a radio station
• Half-duplex
– Bidirectional
– E.g., Walkie-talkie
• Full-duplex A B

– Bidirectional
– E.g., telephone
link link link 12
A B A B A B
 Wireless Links
• Message is broadcast
– Received by all nodes in range
C
B

A
D

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 Wireless Links
• Message is broadcast
– Received by all nodes in range
C
B

Interference
A
D

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 A Small Network
• Connect a couple of computers

• Next, a large network

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16
 Network names by scale
Scale Type Example
Vicinity PAN (Personal Area Network)
Building LAN (Local Area Network)
City MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)
Country WAN (Wide Area Network)
Planet The Internet (network of all networks)

WiFi, Ethernet
The Internet
Large ISP
Cable, DSL
Bluetooth (e.g. headset)

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 Network names by scale
Scale Type Example
Vicinity PAN (Personal Area Network) Bluetooth (e.g. headset)
Building LAN (Local Area Network) WiFi, Ethernet
City MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) Cable, DSL
Country WAN (Wide Area Network) Large ISP
Planet The Internet (network of all networks) The Internet

WiFi, Ethernet
The Internet
Large ISP
Cable, DSL
Bluetooth (e.g. headset)

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 What is internet/Internet?
• An inter-net: a network of networks
– Networks are connected using routers and other
devices
– Networks can use diverse technologies
– Typically managed by different organization

• The Internet: the interconnected set of networks

of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
– ~23,000 “transit” ISPs + many more “edge” networks
– Mainly based on TCP/IP

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 Rough Internet Timeline

Estimated Hosts
9
10 3: Modern
Internet & Web
106
2: NSFNET
10
3
1: ARPANET
Year
1969 1982 1995 2018

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 Start of the Internet

• ARPANET ~1970

(a) Dec. 1969. (b) July 1970. (c) March 1971.

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 Vision about Internet
• “I think there is a world market for maybe five
computers.”
– Thomas J. Watson, chairman and CEO of IBM, 1943.

• “I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly

supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”
– Robert Metcalfe, co-inventor of Ethernet, 1995.

• "By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the

Internet's impact on the economy has been no
greater than the fax machine's.“
– Paul Krugman, economist, 1998.
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 Vision about Internet
• “When wireless is perfectly applied the
whole earth will be converted into a huge
brain.... We shall be able to communicate
with one another instantly, irrespective of
distance. Not only this, but through
television and telephony we shall see and
hear one another as perfectly as though
we were face to face, despite intervening
distances of thousands of miles; and the
instruments through which we shall be
able to do this will be amazingly simple
compared with our present telephone. A
man will be able to carry one in his vest
pocket.”
– Nikola Tesla, 1926.

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 The Reality
• Internet ~2005
– An everyday institution
used at work, home,
and on-the-go

– Visualization contains
millions of links

Attribution: By The Opte Project [CC-BY-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

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 ARPANET Geographical MAP

56 kbps links

“IMPs” were
early routers

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IMP: Internet Message Processor
Key influences leading up to ARPANET
• Packet switching
– (Leonard Kleinrock, Donald Davies, 1960s)

– Organize information in small units of packets

– More efficient than circuit switching
• Traffic is bursty
• Advantages of statistical multiplexing

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 Circuit Switching
F cannot have call with D
F at the same moment, but E
can call B now a a a

S3

a
a
A

a
a a a a a
D
S1 S2
Exclusive
A has call channel
with E
B C

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 Packet Switching
F sends data to D
F E
f f f f f a a a a a
f a
a
S3

a
f

f
f
A

a
f

a a a f a f a
f a D
a
a f
f S1 S2
f f
A sends to E Shared
Channels
B C

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Key influences leading up to ARPANET
• Decentralized control
– (Paul Baran, 1960s)

– Robust to failure
– Capability to withstand
losses of large portions of
the underlying networks

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Key influences leading up to ARPANET
• Internetworking
– (Vinton Cerf & Robert Kahn in 1974, “fathers of
the Internet”)

– Connecting different networks together into a

single large network
• Packet radio network, satellite networks …
• Different kinds of technologies
• The glue: TCP/IP

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 Growing Up - NSFNET
• NSFNET ’85 supports educational networks
– Initially connected supercomputer sites, but soon
became the backbone for all networks

• Classic Internet protocols we use emerged

– TCP/IP (transport), DNS (naming), Berkeley sockets
(API) in ’83, BGP (routing) in ’93

• Much growth from PCs and Ethernet LANs

– Campuses, businesses, then homes
– 1 million hosts by 1993

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 Modern Internet – Birth of the Web
• After ’95, connectivity is provided by large ISPs
who are competitors
– They connect at Internet eXchange Point (IXP)
facilities

• Web bursts on the scene in ’93 (Tim Berners-Lee)

– Growth leads to CDNs, ICANN (Internet Corporation
for Assigned Numbers and Names) in ’98
– Content is driving the Internet
– Most bits are video (soon wireless)

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 What are we going to learn?
• What happens when you “browse the web”?
– How the Internet works?
– Surprising amount of machinery that support this
operation

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 What are we going to learn?
• Fundamentals of communication networks
– CSMA, 802.11, TCP/IP, HTTP etc.
– What do they mean? How do they operate? What
are their purposes? Why do they exist?
– What hard problems must be solved?
• E.g. Reliability
– What design strategies have proven valuable?

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 Fundamentals
• The Internet is constantly being re-invented!
– Growth over time and technology trends drive
upheavals in Internet design and usage
Growth / Tech Driver Upheaval
Emergence of the web Content Distribution Networks
Digital songs/videos Peer-to-peer file sharing
Falling cost/bit Voice-over-IP calling
Many Internet hosts IPv6
Wireless advances Mobile devices

• Today’s Internet is different from yesterday’s

– And tomorrow’s will be different again
– But the fundamentals remain the same

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