Computer Laboratory

Course pages 2016–17

Computer Networking

  • PDF bundle for Slide Set 1 (Topic 1 through 7) as 6-up PDF Updated: 2016-11-16

  • Topic 1 Introduction / Foundation pptx pdf Updated: 2016-11-16

  • Topic 2 Architecture and Internet pptx pdf Updated: 2016-11-16

  • Topic 3 Physical and Data-Link Layer pptx pdf Updated: 2016-11-16

  • Topic 4 Network Layer pptx pdf Updated: 2016-11-16

  • Topic 5 Transport Layer pptx pdf Updated: 2016-11-16

  • Topic 6 Network Applications pptx pdf Updated: 2016-11-16

  • Topic 7 Data Center Networking pptx pdf Updated: 2016-11-16


Supervision Handouts

2016-17 Supervison Questions PDF


Topic-specific material

Topic 1 - Foundation (Introduction)

  • How long is a nanosecond? Grace Hooper on YouTube
  • Grace Hopper on Letterman on YouTube
  • Trying to explain the interconnectedness of the Internet to your parents/grand-parents? The Internet Revealed Disclaimer: this is very IXP-centric, funded as it is by Euro-IX, the body representing a big bunch of IXPs. Trivia: LINX (London IXP) has been the worlds largest IXP by traffic, customers, and peerings).
  • As mentioned in lecture 2 - Gibbens,Kelly/Key Dynamic Alyternative Routing Frank's page here
  • Travelling waves on the motorway here, here and here

Topic 2 - Foundations and Architecture

  • End-to-End Arguments in System Design, Saltzer, J., Reed, D., and Clark, D.D., Second International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (April 1981) pages 509-512, ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 1984, Vol. 2, No. 4, November, pp. 277-288 PDF
  • Andrew D. Birrell and Bruce Jay Nelson, "Implementing remote procedure calls", ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 2(1), 1984, (PDF)
  • David Tennenhouse, "Layered Multiplexing Considered Harmful", Protocols for High-Speed Networks, Rudin and Williamson (Editors), NorthHolland, Amsterdam, 1989 (PDF)

Topic 3 - Data-Link (Media Access) and Physical

  • R Metcalfe and D Boggs, "Ethernet: Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer Networks", ACM Computer Systems, 1976. (PDF)
  • Hedey Lamarr Google doodle here

Topic 4 - Networks (warning some silliness)

  • A detailed discussion of how BGP mistakes lead to YouTube hijacking Hijacking the Internet
  • Following on from How do we size buffers in the Internet? Jim Getty'sBuffer Bloat page. Buffer bloat project page.
  • IPv4 address space is virtually exhausted..... news at 11; lecture material around Topic 4. This web page points to many of the "the Internet is about to end.... Doom I tell you....." gadgets and pages on the Internet.
  • The Day The Routers Died... from RIPE 55 network operators meetings in 2007.
  • Internet Kill Switch
  • IPv6 is still broken, or missing, in most vendors' consumer network gear
  • A Few of my favorite things Delightful video by the people at CAIDA while a little dated, the issues of bad decisions, bad law and the simple wonder of the Internet carry on.
  • Tom Edsall Interview "Talking about switches" from the Stanford CS144 course Fall 2014 youtube
  • Sally Floyd and Van Jacobson, "The Syncronization of Period Routing Messages", IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 2(2), p. 122-136, April 1994. (PDF)
  • Vern Paxson and Sally Floyd, "Wide-Area Traffic: The Failure of Poisson Modeling", IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 3(3), 1995 (PDF)
  • A comparison of different VPN security protocols here

Topic 5 - Transport

  • A quicktime video of TCP video thing presentation is available HERE Notes about the movie are available here. You may wish to open two browser windows: one for the movie and one for the notes.

  • Van Jacobson and Michael J. Karels, "Congestion Aviodance and Control", (PDF) slightly revised version of Jacobson, V. Congestion avoidance and control. In Proceedings of SIGCOMM 88 ( Stanford, CA, Aug. 1988), ACM.

Topic 6 - Applications

Topic 7 - Data Centers

  • Luiz Barroso ISCA 2011 Keynote "Warehouse-Scale computing: Entering the Teenage Decade" (ACM website)
  • NetFPGA Project website
  • Google datacenter street view (its so close to an advert... so apologies for that) Lots of boxes
  • Better is just doing the street view yourself, go hunt the easter eggs...streetview
  • Interesting article about DC design refering to facebook here with a media puff piece summary here