This is an archived syllabus from 2017-2018

• View 2018-2019 syllabus.

COMP28411 Computer Networks

Level 2
Credits: 10
Enrolled students: 101

Course leader: Andy Carpenter

Additional staff: view all staff

Requisites

• Pre-Requisite (Compulsory): COMP18112
• Pre-Requisite (Compulsory): COMP15111

Additional requirements

• Students who are not from the School of Computer Science must have permission from both Computer Science and their home School to enrol.

  Pre-requisites

  To enrol students are required to have taken COMP18112 plus one of COMP15111 or MATH10111

Assessment methods

• 70% Written exam
• 30% Practical skills assessment

Timetable

Semester	Event	Location	Day	Time	Group
Sem 1	Lecture	1.1	Mon	09:00 - 10:00	-
Sem 1 A	Lecture	1.1	Tue	15:00 - 16:00	-
Sem 1 B	Lab	LF31	Thu	09:00 - 11:00	G
Sem 1 B	Lab	LF31	Fri	11:00 - 13:00	F
Sem 1 B	Workshop	G23	Mon	13:00 - 14:00	J
Sem 1 B	Workshop	G23	Tue	15:00 - 16:00	K

Themes to which this unit belongs

• Mobile Computing and Networks

Overview

In today's connected world, phones, PDAs, computers, .. all share information. In reality, it's the applications running on these devices, e.g. picture messaging and e-Commerce, that share the information. This course unit examines the principles involved in making this sharing possible, efficient and secure. In particular, it looks at how networking can mask many of the imperfections of interconnection technologies from applications; allow applications to share communication mediums; and potentially give Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees to applications. At the end of the unit you'll appreciate how different applications can place different demands on the interconnection infrastructure and conversely how technology can limit the types of application that can be run.

Aims

This course unit aims to build on the ideas gained in the first year course unit Fundamentals of Distributed Systems. It aims to provide students with an understanding of the techniques that networking protocols use to achieve error detection and recovery, multiplexing and security protection. To also seeks to show students how the limitations of communication media can limit what applications can achieve. Equipment with the skills needed to go out and setup networks in small and medium sized organisations.

Syllabus

Introduction

network elements, network structures, protocols, service models, encapsulation, sharing, performance measures

Applications

networking elements of an application (multiple protocols, clients, servers, meaning of data, data encoding), styles of protocols, relationship of control and data, distributing information, caching

Security

attacks, authentication, confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation, encryption/decryption, keys, key distribution, digital certificates, implementing secure systems (IPSEC, TLS), firewalls

Multimedia networks

IP multimedia, VoIP, streaming and buffering, jitter, multimedia error recovery, RTP, content distribution networks, peer-to-peer, bit torrent, multimedia QoS

Inter-process communication

service models, reliability (acknowledgements, retransmission, variable timeouts), flow control, congestion control, RPC, discovery (port mappers)

Host-to-host communication

forwarding, mapping to physical networks (address, fragmentation), address managment (sub-netting, cidr)

Node-to-node communication

error detection (parity, crc), framing, bit encoding, wireless transmissions

Convergence

relationship mobile phones and data communications

Teaching methods

Lectures

17 in total, 3 per fortnight

Examples classes

5 in total, 1 per fortnight (Moodle-based)

Laboratories

10 hours in total, 5 2-hour sessions

Feedback methods

Study hours

• Assessment written exam (2 hours)
• Lectures (18 hours)
• Practical classes & workshops (15 hours)

Employability skills

• Analytical skills
• Problem solving

Learning outcomes

Reading list

Additional notes

Course unit materials

Links to course unit teaching materials can be found on the School of Computer Science website for current students.