Course Information

Data Communication DVP Fall 96

Introduction

The subject data communication include architectures, design methods and implementation techniques for the exchange of data between computers in computer networks.

The importance of computer networks has increased dramatically with the recent wide spread usage of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Knowledge of data communication is necessary for the design of personal telecommunication systems, remote data base systems, distributed systems and other cooperating computer systems.

The objective with this course is to introduce, study and to discuss the main issues in data communication. It will include layered communication architectures, transmission techniques, protocol design, network organization, implementation techniques and user-to-user data exchange principles. The course has practical assignments on protocol design and implementation.

Prerequisites

The course participants must have passed the following courses, or have corresponding knowledge to Algorithm and Data Structures, Computer Architectures, Operating Systems and basic knowledge about Unix and C.

Instructors

Contacts with the instructors are preferably done via data communication means, ie via electronic mail.

Course home page and news

The course has a World Wide Web home page: http://www.docs.uu.se/~perg/course/datakom/dv96/index.swe.html. News, some lectures notes, assignments, result announcement and other course related information will be announced on the page besides ordinary class room announcements. It is assumed that all students regularly are reading this page. Results from exams and assignments can only be reached from computers at Polacksbacken.

Text book and other literature

Recommended reference literature

Additional course material

The text book will be complemented with additional papers, lecture notes, assignments etc. This material will either be for sale by Magnus Berggren, room 1403, or distributed in class.

Assignments

The course has the following assignments:

  1. The Alternating Bit Protocol in SDT
    Questions answered by Björn Knutsson and Jochen Schiller
  2. Nätverk och nättjänster
  3. Questions answered by Björn Knutsson

  4. Client/Server programming in Unix
  5. Questions answered by Jesper Jonsson

The assignments are to be done in groups of two (or one) students at scheduled laboratory times. The main part of the Client/Server programming assignment must be carried out outside scheduled time.

Lab reports are given directly to the course assistant Jesper Jonsson, preferebly dropped in his department mailbox no 95, house one, level four. The assignments will be graded and will be given bonus points if they are turned in in time. Corrected assignments can be found outside the DVP expedition at level 4, house 1 and the grade can be found in the in the result file.

Deadlines for the assignments can be found below. Any changes in deadlines are announced on the home page. Assignments turned in later will be corrected and graded sometime before 31/8 1997. At that date the bonus points will also expire and the assignments will not be valid anymore. A student that fails to meet the deadline must register again for a new course instance.

Examination

The course grade is given by:

  1. Written exam.
    (Ordinary exam is December 17, 1996, 9-15, at Magistern.).
  2. Mandatory assignments.
    (The turned in assignments must be of passing quality).

Maximum course points is 100. The points are given according to the following preliminary distribution:

Preliminary, the course grade G requires at least 55 points, grade VG at least 70 points or more. Note that it is difficult to pass the course unless the assignments are done in time.

Result announcements

All results will be announced in the result file, which can only be locally accessed at Polacksbacken.

Cheating

At other instances of this course,a few students have been cheating with mandatory assignments. Therefore we want to stress that these assignments must be solved individually or in groups of two students. All participants in a group are assumed to be able to present and explain the groups solutions to the instructors. The assignments represents an important part of the course and we have earlier reported all suspected cheatings to rector magnificus. The Högskoleförordningen is clear on this point:

Paragraf 1: Disciplinär åtgärd får vidtas mot student som ... med otillåtna hjälpmedel eller på annat sätt försöker vilseleda vid prov eller när studieprestation ska bedömas.

...

Paragraf 9: Grundad misstanke om sådan förseelse som anges i Paragraf 1 skall skyndsamt anmälas till rektor.


Preliminary lecture plan

The lectures are divided into different categories:

    (F) Lectures (PG, JS, EM, BK)
    (U) Preparation for the assignments (BK, JJ)

All clecture rooms are at Polacksbacken. The first digit represents the building, for example 1=Infanteristen/DoCS, 2=Matematikum, 6=Rullan and 8=Sjukan/Reglerteknik. Room numbers 2001-2005 refer to Ångströmslaboratoriet. The second digit represents the level.


Category Instructor Date Time Room Literature Content

F1

PG, JS

4/11

13-15

1211

Tan-1

Introduction, Why Communication. Computer Networks.

F2

JS

5/11

8-10

1211

Tan-1

Communication Models, Layering, Architectures, Protocols, Services and Standards.

F3

JS

6/11

8-10

1211

Tan-2

Transmission and physical media.

F4

JS

11/11

10-12

1311

Tan-3

Data Link Layer. Framing, Error correction and Flow control.

F5

JS

12/11

8-10

1311

Tan-3, B&H.

Formal Methods. Finite State Machines, SDL. Assignment.

F6

JS

14/11

8-10

1311

Tan-4

Multiplexing. Media Access protocol basics

U1

BK

14/11

13-17

1411/12

Ass

Lab. time. SDL assignment

F7

JS

15/11 10-12

1211

Tan-4

MAC protocols continued, advanced protocols.

U2

BK

15/11

13-15

1411/12

Ass

Lab. time. SDL assignment

F8

EM

18/11

8-10

1311

Tan-5

Internetworking - repeaters, bridges

F9

EM

19/11

8-10

1311

Tan-5

.Internetworking - routers

F10

EM

21/11

8-10

1311

Tan-5

Internet, IPv4

F11

EM

22/11

8-10

1311

Tan-5

IPv6, routing, DNS, BGP, OSPF

U3

BK

22/11

10-12

1311

DOSarticle, Stevens,Tan

Client/Server, Protocol Implementations, Berkely Unix Network programming.

Deadline

NA

25/11

17

NA

NA

Deadline SDL assignment.

F12

EM

26/11

8-10

1311

Tan-6

ARP, RARP, ICMP, PPP Transport layer,

U4

BK

26/11

10-15

1411/12

Ass

Lab. time. Client/Server.

F13

EM

27/11

8-10

1311

Tan-6

TCP, UDP, TCP, FTP, SNMP & Telnet.

U5

BK

28/11

13-17

1411/12

Ass

Lab. time. Client/Server.

F14

PG

29/11

10-12

1311

Tan-2-6

ATM networks, QoS and Service contracts.

F15

PG

3/12

8-10

1311

Tan-2-6

ATM congestion control and ATM Adaptation Layers.

F16

PG

5/12

8-10

1311

Tan-7

Higher Layer protocols. ISO and Internet. Email, RFC 822, MIME, PGP, WWW, HTTP.

U6

BK

6/12

8-10

1311

Ass.

Client/Server assignment advise time.

F17

PG

9/12

13-15

1311

Article.

Datacom research at DoCS: Deadlock problems in ATM/TCP.

F18

PG

10/12

8-10

1311

NA

Study visit to ITS. Repetition and discussion of old exams.

F21

PG

12/12

8-10

1311

NA

Spare

Exam

PG

17/12

9-15

NA

NA

Magistern.

Deadline

NA

20/12

17

NA

NA

Assignment: Client/Server

Deadline

NA

31/8

17

NA

NA

Assignments and bonus points expires.


Reading directions

The following chapters in Tanenbaum Other literartures should be read completely or otherwise according to recommendations in class.

Chapter Pages Content Comments
1 1-55 Introduction Read All.
47-72 Network standardization Read for fun.
2 77-81 Theoretical basis Read all
94-102 Wireless transmission Skip
102-113, 118-124, 155-163 Telephone system Ericsson expects you to know this.Basic stuff,easy reading Not included in the course.
114-118 RS 232, RS 449 Basics about your modem. Not included in the course, but....
140-147 ISDN services Read All
3 175-229 Data Link Layer Fundamental. Read careful.
229-235 SLIP and PPP Basic about PPP. For additional information, see Stevens book.
4 243-260 Medium acces protocols Read all.
266-271, 157-163 About your GSM phone. Not in the course, but good to know when your non-technical friend asks.
275-301 LANs &MANs Read all.
304-324, 334 Bridges, Routers & High Speed Networks Read all.
5 339-367 Network Layer, routing, Skip mobile and multicast routing.
374-386 Congestion Control Read all.
396-412 Internetworking, Read all.
412-474 IP and protocols, ATM Skip: 432-434.
6 479-542 Transport Layer and TCP Read all.
542 UDP Bare bones, but important. Needed for the assignment.
545-555 ATM Adaptation Layers Read all.
7 622-630 DNS Careful reading. Needed for the assignment.
643-667 Email, MIME, PGP Read all.
669-680 Usenet Not included in the course, but good reading.
681-695 WWW and HTTP Read all.
695-718 HTM, Java and Security Read yourself if you do not alrady know it. Will not be tested on the exam.
723-761 Multimedia Datacom II stuff. Not included