MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

EECS Fall 1998 Catalogue Supplement

6.896 Topics in Computer Networks (H)

MW 11-12:30, 36-372
Prof. Hari Balakrishnan, NE43-510, x6005
Prerequisite: 6.033 or equivalent or permission of instructor
Enrollment may be limited
3-0-9

The goals of this class are to understand state of the art in various topics in network protocols, architectures and applications; to understand how networking research is done; and to investigate novel ideas via semester-long research projects.

Topics: the internet design philosophy; unicast and multicast routing; routing lookup algorithms; router support for fairness and QoS; differentiated and integrated service architectures; network security; unicast and multicast congestion control; protocols for wireless and mobile systems; web protocols and caching schemes; adaptive applications; sensor networks; location-dependent applications and services; reliable multicast; active networks; internet measurement infrastructures; recent industry trends.

Material for the class will be drawn from research papers, industry white papers and internet RFCs.

Class meetings will discuss assigned readings from the literature. Guest lectures on certain topics. Emphasis on practical aspects of computer networks and the internet, centered around discussions and arguments. Class participation is very important. Grades based primarily on a significant class project, to be performed in groups. Participants will also write a conference-style paper describing the project, due at the end of the term.

Additional information is available at http://www.sds.lcs.mit.edu/~hari/6.896