CS 455: Data Communications

Instructor: Dr. Marius D. Soneru

Rice Office: room 230, telephone 630-682-6034
MC Office: room SB110, telephone 312-567-5719
Email: soneru@iit.edu
Office hours: Tuesday: MC 12:40 to 1:40 p.m Thursday: MC 5:00 to 6:15 p.m. Other hours by appointment

MC Office: room SB 019B, telephone 312-567-5869
Email: xmao3@iit.edu
Office hours: Tuesday: 12:00 to 1:00 p.m Wednesday: 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. Other hours by appointment

Provide the student with an overall perspective of data communications by covering the fundamentals of transmitting data from a source to one or more destinations utilizing standard protocols operating over networks with various topologies.
The emphasis is on point-to-point Wide Area Networks, including the Internet, and multiple access Local Area Networks.

Understand the operation of multi-layered protocols, particularly the OSI and Internet models/architectures, and how standards evolve.
Describe the difference between different network topologies, including packet and circuit switched, LANs and WANs, and identify and describe networks that apply to each network type.
Understand the basic concepts of the Physical Layer, including physical media, encoding/modulation, multiplexing, error control, and their implementation in various commercial networks.
Describe the basic operation of the Data Link Layer, including connection oriented versus connectionless protocols, retransmission algorithms, windows and flow control, and their implementations in various networks.
Describe the basic operation of the network layer, including addressing and routing.
Describe the basic operation of TCP/UDP, including connection establishment and release, buffered transfer, adaptive retransmission, and congestion and flow control.
Describe LAN architectures and their implementations
Introduce Application layer concepts, including commercial Internet protocols and client-server technologies.
Introduce special issues, including security, performance, and quality of service from a technical and ethical viewpoint.
Tie in all above concepts to describe the global data telecommunications network.

CS455 is a senior course in Computer Science and as such expects from its students a reasonable level of mathematical and and computing sophistication.
Physical phenomena such as electrical signals are discussed but no background beyond high school physics is assumed.
Discussion of the software aspects of data communications assumes a knowledge of: operating systems, data structures, and the organization of reasonably complicated programs.
CS450 or an equivalent course is a pre-requisite.

Halsall, Fred, Computer Networking and the Internet, Fifth Edition, Addison-Wesley, 2005.

The course notes will be posted on Blackboard. Please use blackboard.iit.edu to access other course materials as well.

There will be regular homework assignments and the assignments are due two weeks after the day of the assignment; late submission will be penalized.

There will be a midterm about the 7th week; the exact date bill be announced at least two weeks in advance. A final exam will be given at the end of the semester.

The final grade for the course will be based upon the total number of points, allocated as follows: Midterm 30%; Project 15%; Homework assignments 20%; Final exam 35%. Grade distribution will be as follows: 90 <= A; 80 <= B < 90; 70 <= C < 80; 65 <= D < 70

Edited Jan 23rd, 2008 (html, css checks)