News
- Homework 2 online
- Lecture schedule and papers updated for remainder of quarter.
- Class cancelled, Saturday Oct 25.
- Friday (10/10)'s lecture moved to Saturday (10/11), same time and
place (Phelps 1401, 1pm)
- Sept 9: Google group is now live, join here.
- All lecture notes will be posted to the GoogleGroup. Make sure you have an account.
- Webpage going online, lecture topics/papers still tentative
General Information
When and Where: Mon/Wed, 1:00--2:50PM, Phelps 1401
Professor: Ben Zhao,
ravenben at cs.ucsb.edu
TA: Xia Zhou
Office Hours:
- Ben: Wednesdays, 11AM-Noon
- Xia: Mondays, 10-11AM
Class Email List: CS276
Google Group
Prerequisites: Solid background in networking
(CS176A+B or equivalent).
Introduction
This course will focus on studying the state of the art in networking
and networked systems. We will cover a variety of topics from routing
protocols to Internet stability, peer-to-peer, social networks and
networking for datacenters. Each topic
will provide background on traditional perspectives, with updates from
current and ongoing research. The expectation is that everyone has a
solid background on networking basics. Discussions of background
material from a textbook will be complemented by those of current
publications. Students will learn tools, techniques, and concepts while
learning to carry out original research in a course project, with the
end goal of producing real, publishable results by the end of the
quarter. In addition, students are expected to gain experience in two
valuable skills: quickly reading technical papers (without sacrificing
understanding), and giving public presentations.
Textbooks
The majority of reading material for this course will come in the form
of research papers. There is no required textbook, but there are
several useful texts (optional) that you can use as background material
to help you better understand the papers.
- Kurose and Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach
Featuring the Internet, 3rd edition.
- Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 3rd edition.
- Peterson and Davie, Computer Networks: A Systems Approach,
2nd edition.
Class Participation
Each student is highly encouraged to read all of the relevant papers
before attending class. There are no paper reviews due, unlike my
previous grad courses. At the beginning of each lecture, we will
randomly choose a member of the class to give a very brief
5 minute discussion of the papers, their salient points, and the most
useful take-aways from each paper. While there is no specific grade
assigned to the presentation, the results will be recorded, and can be
used to either "boost" or "lower" your final grade if it falls between
letter grades. The actual experiences themselves should help students
with public speaking.
Grading Policy
Your quarter grade will be derived from
homework assignments, a midterm exam, and a class
project: