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

• Per Gunningberg (PG), lectures (see schedule)and course responsibility.
  Office 1437, telephone 018 - 18 31 71,
  email: perg@docs.uu.se .
• Eric Malmström (EM), lectures (see schedule).
  Telphone: 08 - 619 32 34, mobil 0708 - 19 32 34,
  email: eric.malmstrom@global-one.se .
• Jochen Schiller (JS), lectures, (see schedule).
  Office 1457, telephone 018-183174,
  email schiller@docs.uu.se
• Björn Knutsson (BK), course assistant, lab instructor (see schedule).
  Office 1310, telephone 018 - 183162,
  email:bjorn@docs.uu.se .
• Jesper Jonsson, course assistant.
  Mail box no: 95,
  email:jojo@docs.uu.se .

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

• Tanenbaum A., Computer Networks, Third Edition, Prentice-Hall 1996.

Recommended reference literature

• Stevens R., TCP/IP Illustrated. Vol. I and II, Addison Wesley.
• Stevens R., Unix Network Programming, Prentice Hall.
• Halsall, F., Data Communication, Computer Networks and Open Systems, Addison Wesley, IV edition.
• Stalling, R., Data Computer Communications, IV edition, McMillan.

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.

• Schiller J, Malmstrom E, Gunningberg P, and Knutsson B: Datakommunikation, föreläsningsanteckningar, for sale by Magnus Berggren, room 1403.
  Parts available on the web:
  • Björn Knutsson, Kommunikation via UDP sockets 1996.
  • Björn Knutsson, Krav på program och dokumentation 1996.
• The SDL assignment as well as the article: Belina F., Hogrefe D., The CCITT-Specification and Description Language SDL, Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 16, sid. 311-321, 1988/89.

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
   
Questions answered by Björn Knutsson
3. Client/Server programming in Unix
   
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:

• At most 3 points for the Alternating Bit Protocol assignment. Deadline for bonus is 1996-11-25, 1700
• At most 12 points for the Client/Server assignment. Deadline for bonus is 1996-12-20, 1700.
• At least 85 points for the written exam.

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.

Reading directions

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