Course pages 2015–16

Network Architectures, FS09, Tue&Thu at 10.00am

This course is mainly based around reading papers and learning how to find the positive and negative (in that order) in those papers. There is a preliminary schedule of when you will be speaking, and link to papers you'll be talking about.

Student's speaking assignments are to give a 20-25 minute prepared talk on the paper. I am very happy to discuss paper assignments and talks beforehand.

Here's some jolly good general advice on How to read a paper by Keshav from Waterloo, plus how to write a great paper and give a great talk about it by Simon Peyton-Jones, from Microsoft.

We'll go through these topics at roughly one per week. There are also guest lectures from experts on their topics.

One thing I'd like readers to bear in mind is that one can take an evolutionary approach to network architecture change, or one can try to be revolutionary. In discussing a given paper, try to see which approach it is taking and whether this supports or undermines the viability of the proposed idea - this notion originated with Constantine Dovrolis and Jenifer Rexford in this nice counterpoint discussion. An important evolutionary refinement is Punctuated Equilibrium: which may be how technology (including networks) evolve really.

A very interesting complex systems/systems bio/eco/evolutionary view on how layered architectures evolve is this paper on Architecture, constraints, and behavior by John C. Doyle and Marie Cseteb.

Forwarding/Addressing & IPv6 & The Internet Architecture for Oct 8 & 13