Table of Contents

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10

---

Syllabus

Week 1

March 31

LectureCourse Introduction & Overview

Readings

• Ch 1 — First Principles, §The Question Behind Every System
• Ch 1 — First Principles, §A Motivating Example: What Happens When You Load a Web Page

April 2

LectureThe Four Invariants (Ch 1)

Readings

• Ch 1 — First Principles, §The Four Invariants
• Ch 1 — First Principles, §Design Principles: Strategies for Answering Well
• Ch 1 — First Principles, §The Anchored Dependency Graph

PA1 Released PA1: Investigate Wireless Network Protocol — due Tuesday, April 14 at 11:59 PM.

Discussion Section Environment setup & tool orientation - Submit on Gradescope

Week 2

April 7

LectureDesign Principles in Action: From Nothing to a Routable Network (Ch 1, 5, 6)

Readings

• Ch 1 — First Principles, §Decomposition: Why Systems Have Parts
• Ch 1 — First Principles, §Generative Exercise: QUIC and the Interface Renegotiation
• Ch 6 — Routing & Switching, §Act 1: The First Four Nodes Come Online
• Ch 6 — Routing & Switching, §Act 2: The ARPANET Is Oscillating

April 9

LectureDesign BGP and SDN From Scratch (Ch 6)

Readings

• Ch 6 — Routing & Switching, §Act 3: Ethernet LANs Keep Crashing from Loops
• Ch 6 — Routing & Switching, §Act 4: The Internet Commercializes. Shortest-Path Breaks.
• Ch 6 — Routing & Switching, §Act 5: Operators Need Traffic Engineering
• Ch 6 — Routing & Switching, §Act 6: Networks Are Unmanageable

Discussion Section 802.11 intro - Submit on Gradescope

Week 3

April 14

LectureThe Shared-Medium Problem (Ch 2, 3)

Readings

• Ch 2 — Wired Link Layer, §The Anchor: Point-to-Point or Shared Bus
• Ch 2 — Wired Link Layer, §Act 1: A Building Full of Personal Computers Needs a Network (CSMA/CD)
• Ch 3 — Wireless Link Layer, §The Anchor: Shared Broadcast Medium
• Ch 3 — Wireless Link Layer, §Act 1: Pure ALOHA (1970)
• Ch 3 — Wireless Link Layer, §Act 2: Packet Radio Channels Are Getting Crowded (CSMA)

PA1 Due PA1: Investigate Wireless Network Protocol — due Tuesday, April 14 at 11:59 PM.

April 16

LectureHow Wireless Closes the Loop: CSMA/CA and Its Limits (Ch 3)

Readings

• Ch 3 — Wireless Link Layer, §Act 3: WiFi Ships. 802.11 DCF Codifies CSMA/CA
• Ch 3 — Wireless Link Layer, §Interactive: CSMA/CA Throughput vs. Station Count

Discussion Section Flow analysis & packet parsing - Submit on Gradescope

Week 4

April 21

No Class Cancelled — see email for pre-lecture exercise (The Overhead Tax).

April 23

LectureBreaking the Contention Ceiling (Ch 3, 4)

Readings

• Ch 3 — Wireless Link Layer, §Act 4: WiFi Adopts Cellular-Style Scheduling. 802.11ax Ships
• Ch 3 — Wireless Link Layer, §Act 5: The Cellular Alternative: Centralized from Day One
• Ch 4 — Wireless Infrastructure, §The Anchor: Licensed Spectrum with Exclusive Operator Ownership
• Ch 4 — Wireless Infrastructure, §Act 1: GSM — Europe Needs a Unified Digital Cellular Standard
• Ch 4 — Wireless Infrastructure, §Act 2: Packet Data Demands a Parallel Path (UMTS)
• Ch 4 — Wireless Infrastructure, §Act 3: All Traffic Must Become IP (LTE)

Discussion Section QoS metric extraction for video streaming

PA2 Due PA2: Extract QoS Metrics for Video Streaming Applications — due Tuesday, April 14 at 11:59 PM.

Week 5

April 28

LectureWired Link Layer: From Switches to Virtual Overlays (Ch 2)

Readings

• Ch 2 — Wired Link Layer, §Act 2: Bridges Connect Cable Segments and Create Loops
• Ch 2 — Wired Link Layer, §Act 3: The Switch Revolution Eliminates the Shared Bus
• Ch 2 — Wired Link Layer, §Act 4: Data Centers Expose STP’s Fatal Flaw
• Ch 2 — Wired Link Layer, §Act 5: Applications Need L2 Semantics Across an L3 Fabric
• Ch 3 — Wireless Link Layer, §The Grand Arc: From ALOHA to Massive MIMO

April 30

LectureReview / Buffer

Readings

• Ch 2 — Wired Link Layer, §The Grand Arc: From Shared Bus to Virtual Overlay
• Review all Ch 1–4 sections covered in Weeks 1–4

Discussion Section Midterm review

Week 6

May 5

LectureMidterm Exam The midterm is in-class and closed-device. It covers Chapters 1, 3, 4 (First Principles, Wireless Link Layer, Wireless Infrastructure).

May 7

LectureQueue Management (Ch 7)

Readings

• First Principles of Networking, Ch 7 — Queue Management

Discussion Section NetReplica setup & intro

Week 7

May 12

LectureQueue Management (Ch 7)

Readings

• First Principles of Networking, Ch 7 — Queue Management

May 14

LectureMultimedia Applications (Ch 11)

Readings

• First Principles of Networking, Ch 11 — Multimedia

Discussion Section NetReplica deep dive: navigating papers, experiment design

Week 8

May 19

LectureMultimedia Applications (Ch 11)

Readings

• First Principles of Networking, Ch 12 — Measurement

May 21

LectureMeasurement, Management & Research Frontier (Ch 12)

Readings

• First Principles of Networking, Ch 12 — Measurement

Discussion Section NetGent intro + video conferencing analysis

Week 9

May 26

LectureMeasurement, Management & Research Frontier (Ch 12)

Readings

• First Principles of Networking, Ch 12 — Measurement

May 28

LectureMeasurement, Management & Research Frontier (Ch 12)

Readings

• First Principles of Networking, Ch 12 — Measurement

Discussion Section NetReplica/NetGent for network experimentation

Week 10

June 2

LectureMeasurement, Management & Research Frontier (Ch 12)

Readings

• First Principles of Networking, Ch 12 — Measurement

June 4

LectureMeasurement, Management & Research Frontier (Ch 12)

Readings

• First Principles of Networking, Ch 12 — Measurement

Discussion Section No Discussion this week