CNT 4704: Analysis of Computer Communication Networks

Fall 2014

Home                      Lecture notes                        Assignment

 

Instructor:        Dr. Cliff Zou (HEC 243),  407-823-5015,   czou@cs.ucf.edu

Course Time:   MoWe 9:00am – 10:15am , ENG1-384

Office Hour:   MoWe 10:15am-11:45am  

Syllabus: (PDF Syllabus)

This course introduces the fundamental concepts in computer communication networks, their protocols, and applications. Topics to be covered include: overview of network architectures and applications, network programming interfaces (e.g., sockets), transport, congestion, routing, and data link protocols, addressing, local area networks, wireless networks, and network security. Examples will be drawn from the Internet (e.g., TCP, UDP, and IP) protocol suite, and from many real world cases.
In current world, almost everything is computerized and everything is connected. Knowledge on networking becomes as indispensable to Computer Science students as Algorithms or Operating Systems. Network related jobs compose a large portion of the job market in IT industries. Therefore, computer networking knowledge and skill will be critical for Computer Science students in their future career.
In the Wireshark assignments, students will learn how to monitor the real network traffic in and out of their own computers. They will also learn how to manually send out a fake email (to know that how easy for attackers to send spam email). In the programming assignments, students will program basic but realistic client and server code to communicate to each other on two separated machines. They will also program to learn how TCP works and how Internet routers work.
 

The final grade will use +/- policy, i.e., you may get A, A-, B+, B, B- … grade. Because this class has online session, the two exams are open book and similar to all regular homework assignments, except that they have a 24-hour submission constraint.

Prerequisites:

STA 2023 and (COT 3100 or MAD 2401); Programming knowledge on C (or C++);  Basic knowledge on Algorithms and Operating systems

Online Video Streaming: 

We will use UCF Tegrity system. Each lecture’s video will be posted online about two hours after the corresponding face-to-face lecture time. We will also use WebCourse for student discussions, questions and answers, homework/project assignment and submission. In Webcourse, you can find the URL link to Tegrity recording by clicking the "Modules" tab on the left.

Course Materials:

·         Textbook: Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach Featuring the Internet (6th edition), J.F. Kurose and K.W. Ross, Addison-Wesley Longman, 2013. 

        Note that the 4th or 5th edition of the textbook is also OK for this course.  I will make homework assignment problems taken from the textbook available on the course webpage, or make hardcopy of them to give to students who use 4th edition textbook. 

               This textbook is simple and fun to read, yet it covers almost all important aspects of current Internet and computer networks. It has rich online resources by just following the above book's URL link.

·         Assigned readings from the textbook and the Web resource.

·         Class Notes: Class notes (in PowerPoint slides) will be posted on this class Web site before each class (extended and modified based on the textbook slides)