General Information

    When and Where: Tu/Th, 2PM-3:20PM, Ryerson 277
    Professor: Ben Zhao, ravenben at cs.uchicago.edu

    Guest Lectures by Professor Heather Zheng

    TA: Shawn Shan, shawnshan at cs.uchicago.edu

    Office Hours:

    • Ben: Tuesdays after class, and also by appointment 
    • Shawn: TBD

    Prerequisites: Solid background in networking, systems (CS233 or equivalent).

    NOTE: the class is full. We are using the departmental waitlist system.

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.

Classes at UChicago are returning to in person, CS33300 will meet in person as well. We will see how things go and try to adapt to the needs of the enrolled students.

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.
  • Jerome Salzer and M. Frans Kaashoek, Principles of Computer System Design, an introduction. (Primarily for Chapters 1, 2, 7).
  • 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. Students must contribute to an evolving discussion thread on each assigned lecture on Piazza. While there is no specific grade assigned to class participation, the results will be contribute to the course grade, by either "boost" or "lower" your final grade if it falls between letter grades.

Grading Policy

Your quarter grade will be derived from homework assignments, a midterm exam, and a class project (including paper writeup and class presentations):
  • Homework assignments, 15%
  • Exam, 30%
  • Course project, 50%
  • Class participation, ?%