ITC8060

Network Protocol Design (ITC8061, 6 ECTS)

This module focuses on fundamental problems of network protocols and various design decisions and it's implications. This will also include security related protocols and give a better understanding why it is sometimes so hard to secure the Internet. As an exercise we will develop and implement our own protocol.

This module requires some programming skills (or a LOT of motivation to spend a LOT of time on learning algorithms and programming languages on top of the network-protocol related challenges). See also here for more detailed information.

The lectures and seminar discussions will be Friday's, 12.00-13.30 in room is ICT-A1. The is optional additional time on Friday's from 14.00-15.30 for coding and time to work on the implementation and assignments in ICT-403.

Lectures:
    31 Jan  Introduction       
    07 Feb  Layers, naming and addressing  
    14 Feb  Routing Theory I (Bellman-Ford)
    21 Feb  Routing Theory II (Dijkstra + BGP) 
    28 Feb  TCP & Reliability  
    06 Mar  DNSsec / Security of Protocols 
    13 Mar  Network programming concepts & PGP key signing  
    20 Mar  Design Workshop 
    27 Mar  *** NO LECTURE ***  (work on your design) 

Protocol Design & Development:  
    03 Apr  Presentation about Design Specs   
    10 Apr  "AD-review" / final protocol specs        

Implementation: 
    17 Apr  Implementation week 1 
    24 Apr  Implementation week 2 
    01 May  Testing with other groups (Note: your code MUST be ready on 30 Apr!)       

Testing:
    06 May  *** NO LECTURE ***   
    15 May  Demonstration / "Exam" MANDATORY ATTENDANCE (demonstrate your code, oral exam on lecture content)            

Reading recommendations:

• Kurose, Ross, “Computer networking: a top-down approach". Pearson.
• John Day, “Patterns in network architecture: a return to fundamentals”. Prentice Hall.
• Olivier Bonaventure. “Computer Networking: Principles, Protocols, and Practice” http://inl.info.ucl.ac.be/cnp3