CSC 551 (A01) - Fall 2009

Instructor: Dr. K. Wu

Course Title: Computer Communications and Networks: II

While the calendar description of CSC 551 might give you an impression that this is a survey course on the history of computer networks, it is actually not. As a graduate course, CSC 551 includes detailed technical analysis on famous and useful theorems during the evolution of computer communication systems. In this term, we will  narrow down the quite general course description and specifically focus on the following topics:

1. layering or not layering: The layering principle and its implication
2. Telephone networks: Erlang formulas and queuing theory
3. Desired basic properties for network analysis
4. Concentration inequalities and Martingale inequalities
5. Network calculus-- When Markov analysis fails
6. Two trends: Information-driven networks (in-network information processing and network coding) and mobile data networks (social networking with smartphones)

The analytical tools learned in this course should benefit much beyond computer networks research. If your research needs to cope with problems in a queuing system, such as task scheduling, performance bounds on the waiting time and loss probability, this course would be a perfect fit. 

It is worth noting that this course is not an overlap of ELEC 514, CENG 461, or CSC 446, where the focus is on queuing analysis with Markov chains. Instead, CSC 551 puts more weights on the bounds analysis of queuing systems where the Markov property usually does not hold.