Advanced Computer Networks – Syllabus and Course Requirements

This course is an advanced, second-level, networks course. This course will require a large amount of participation from the students. This course is recommended only for those interested in computer networks and who wish to pursue it further. This is a small class – restricted at the very most to 20 students.

PRE-REQUISITES: A very good understanding of TCP/IP stack and other general networking concepts.

The course will consist of 3 broad areas that are some of the current trends in networking:

I. IPv6: The next generation internet – this is the trend of the future and many other aspects of later sections will assume understanding of IPv6.

II. Mobile IP and Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs): In this we study mobile IPv4(mipv4) and mobile IPv6(mipv6). Then, we study the basic issues relating to MANETs, the routing protocols and address allocation issues. We then study security considerations for mobile IP, in general and MANETs, in particular.

Traffic Engineering(TE)/Quality of Service(QOS) in IP: We will study some of the standard protocols in place for QOS/TE in IP today such as diffserv, intserv and MPLS, generalized MPLS.

In addition to the basic protocols and concepts mentioned above, students will be required to do literature survey and study papers in the one of the above areas as well as study some of the papers identified by the faculty.

Depending on the time available, some basics of IP multicast may also be covered.

Course Requirements: Each student will select an area of interest and will go through current research trends in that area and give at least one seminar on the topic and present a term paper at the end of the semester. This will carry 20 marks.

NOTE: It is a requirement to have class discussions on papers/topics being presented by students and faculty. 3 marks out of these 20 will be given for participation in discussions.

A mini-project to be chosen by the students in their area to be simulated on ns-2/OPNET(if available) is required. This will carry 20 marks and is part of the major.

The best of two minors will be for 20 marks. There will be a major exam for 40 marks theory + 20 marks for project.