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CSC/ECE 579: SYLLABUS

The information on this page pertains to the Fall 2012 sections (Sections 001 and 601) of CSC/ECE 579. Section 001 meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:05-12:20 in 2201 EB3.

 

Prerequisites

Students who wish to take this course must have completed a course on Probability Theory (MA 421 or equivalent) and a course on Computer Organization (CSC 312 or ECE 218 or equivalent).

Students must also have good working knowledge of a high-level programming language such as C, C++, or JAVA. The programming projects can be challenging, hence good programming experience is required.

 

Objectives

The purpose of this course is to present simulation techniques and queueing theory as tools for modeling and studying the performance of communication networks and computer systems.


At the conclusion of the course you should be able to:

  1. apply simulation techniques to develop models of computer and communication systems;
  2. appy queueing-based models to characterize computer and communication systems;
  3. use appropriate analytic tools to compute performance measure of interest (e.g., response time and throughput) for a given queueing system;
  4. select the system characteristics (e.g., storage capacity) to achieve a given level of performance;
  5. evaluate the relative merits of alternative system design solutions;
  6. engage in research in the field of performance analysis and evaluation.

I encourage and expect you to participate actively in the learning process. In particular, I welcome your comments and questions as we cover material in class. One-way lectures quickly become boring, both for you and for me. By asking lots of questions your understanding of the material will be deepened significantly, and the course will be much more fun!

Outline

The course is logically divided in three parts.

Part I: Refresher. At the beginning of the semester we will review important concepts from probability theory and Laplace and z transforms.

Part II: Simulation Techniques. This part addresses the development of simulation models, including:

Part III: Queueing Theory. This part introduces a number of fundamental concepts and techniques, including:

Textbook

Students are required to purchase the following textbook:

I also suggest the following two books as reference:

I will also make available an extensive set of lecture slides.

 

Reading List

[HL84] P. Heidelberger, S. Lavenberg, "Computer Performance Evaluation Methodology." IEEE Transactions on Computers, vol. 33, no. 12, pp. 1195-1220, December 1984. (pdf)

[HL84] is a classic paper that provides an excellent introduction to the field of performance evaluation. I strongly suggest that you read it early in the semester.

 

Measurement

[CPB93] K. C. Claffy, G. C. Polyzos, H-W. Braun, "Application of Sampling Methodologies to Network Traffic Characterization." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 194-203, September 1993.


[KP93] J. Kay, J. Pasquale, "The Importance of Non-Data Touching Processing Overheads in TCP/IP." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 259-268, September 1993.

[Bolot93] J-C. Bolot, "End-to-End Packet Delay and Loss Behavior in the Intenet." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 289-298, September 1993.

[LTWW94] W. E. Leland, M. S. Taqqu, W. Willinger, D. V. Wilson, "On the Self-Similar Nature of Ethernet Traffic (Extended Version)." IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1-15, February 1994.

[PF95] V. Paxson, S. Floyd, "Wide Area Traffic: The Failure of Poisson Modeling." IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 226-244, June 1995. (pdf)

[Paxson96] V. Paxson, "End-to-End Routing Behavior in the Intenet." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 25-38, August 1996. (pdf)

[BPSK96] H. Balakrishnan, V. N. Padmanabhan, S. Seshan, R. H. Katz, "A Comparison of Mechanisms for Improving TCP Performance Over Wireless Links." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 256-269, August 1996.

[NSNK97] B. D. Noble, M. Satyanarayanan, G. T. Nguyen, R. H. Katz, "Trace-Based Mobile Network Emulation." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 51-61, September 1997.

[Paxson97] V. Paxson, "End-to-End Intenet Packet Dynamics." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 139-152, September 1997.

[D99] A. B. Downey, "Using pathchar to Estimate Internet Link Characteristics." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 241-250, August/September 1999.

[FFF99] M. Faloutsos, P. Faloutsos, C. Faloutsos, "On Power-Law Relationships of the Internet Topology." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 251-262, August/September 1999.

[PQ00] V. N. Padmanabhan, L. Qiu, "The Content and Access Dynamics of a Busy Web Site: Findings and Implications." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 111-123, August/September 2000.

[FGL00] A. Feldmann, A. Greenberg, C. Lund, "Deriving Traffic Demands for Operational IP Networks: Methodology and Experience." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 257-270, August/September 2000.

[PS01] V. N. Padmanabhan, L. Subramaniam, "An Investigation of Geographic Mapping Techniques for Internet Hosts." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 173-185, August 2001.

[SCJO] F. D. Smith, F. H. Campos, K. Jeffay, D. Ott. "What TCP/IP Protocol Headers Can Tell Us About the Web." In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS/PERFORMANCE, pp. 245-256, June 2001.

 

Simulation

[YKTH93] D. Yates, J. Kurose, D. Towsley, M. G. Hluchyj, "On Per-Session End-to-End Delay Distributions and the Call Admission Problem for Real-Time Applications wtih QoS Requirements." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 2-12, September 1993.

[WAS+96] S. Williams, M. Abrams, C. R. Standridge, G. Abdulla, E. A. Fox, "Removal Policies in Network Caches for World-Wide Web Documents." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 293-305, August 1996.

[CL97] M. E. Crovella, L. Lipsky, "Long-Lasting Transient Conditions in Simulations with Heavy-Tailed Workloads." In Proceedings of the 1997 Winter Simulation Conference, pp. 1005-1012, 1997. (pdf)

[LM97] S. Lin, N. McKeown, "A Simulation Study of IP Switching." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 15-24, September 1996.

[SSZ98] I. Stoica, S. Shenker, H. Zhang, "Core-Stateless Fair Queueing: Achieving Approximately Fair Bandwidth Allocations in High Speed Networks." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 118-130, August/September 1998.

[FHPW00] S. Floyd, M. Handley, J. Padhye, J. Widmer, "Equation-BAsed Congestion Control for Unicast Applications." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 43-56, August/September 2000.

[BR01] A. Basu, J. G. Riecke, "Stability Issues in OSPF Routing." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 225-236, August 2001.

 

Analysis

[AH95] I. F. Akyildiz, S. M. Ho, "A Mobile User Location Update and Paging Mechanism Under Delay Constraints." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 244-255, August/September 1995.


[LCLL98] G-L. Li, J-H. Cui, B. Li, "Transient Loss Performance of a Class of Finite Buffer Queueing Systems." In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS/PERFORMANCE, pp. 111-120, June 1998.

[MRP98] M. W. McKinnon, G. N. Rouskas, H. G. Perros, "Queueing-Based Analysis of Broadcast Optical Networks." In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS/PERFORMANCE, pp. 121-130, June 1998.

[BC98] P. Barford, M. Crovella, "Generating Representative Web Workloads for Network and Server Performance Evaluation." In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS/PERFORMANCE, pp. 151-160, June 1998.

[PFTK98] J. Padhye, V. Firoiu, D. Towsley, J. Kurose, "Modeling TCP Throughput: A Simple Model and Its Empirical Validation." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 303-314, August/September 1998.

[RM99] S. Raman, S. McCane, "A Model, Analysis, and Protocol Framework for Soft State-based Communication." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 15-25, August/September 1999.

[MGT00] V. Misra, W-B. Gong, D. Towsley, "Fluid-based Analysis of a Network of AQM Routers Supporting TCP Flows with an Application to RED." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 151-160, August/September 2000.

[AAB00] E. Altman, K. Avrachenkov, C. Barakat, "A Stochastic Model of TCP/IP with Stationary Random Losses." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 231-242, August/September 2000.

[YLZL01] Y. R. Yang, X. S. Li, X. B. Zhang, S. S. Lam, "Reliable Group Rekeying: A Performance Analysis." In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp. 27-38, August 2001.

[SV01] X. Su, G. de Veciana, "Dynamic Multi-Path Routing: Asymptotoc Approximation and Simulations." In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS/PERFORMANCE, pp. 25-36, June 2001.

[CCLS] J. Cao, S. Cleveland, D. Lin, D. X. Sun "On the Nonstationarity of Internet Traffic." In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS/PERFORMANCE, pp. 102-112, June 2001.

[HS01] N. Hegde, K. Sohraby, "Blocking in Large Mobile Cellular Netowkrs with Bursty Traffic." In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS/PERFORMANCE, pp. 123-132, June 2001.

[TLNC01] J. Talim, Z. Liu, P. Nain, E. G. Coffman, Jr. "Controlling the Robots of Web Search Engines." In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS/PERFORMANCE, pp. 236-244, June 2001.

[BH01] N. Bansal, M. Harchol-Balter, "Analysis of SPRT Scheduling: Investigating Unfairness." In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS/PERFORMANCE, pp. 279-290, June 2001.

[ZRP02] A. H. Zaim, G. N. Rouskas, H. G. Perros, "Computing Call-Blocking Probabilities in LEO Satellite Networks: The Single Orbit Case." IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 51, no. 1, January 2002.

Grading

Students are required to complete all assignments and show all work in order to receive full credit. The final grade will be determined using the following weights:

 

Three programming tasks (of equal weight)
50%
Homework assignments (of equal weight, on queueing theory)
10%
Midterm exam (open book)
20%
Final exam (comprehensive, open book)
20%

 

 

Policies

Attendance is not mandatory but strongly encouraged. Students are responsible for making up any course material they miss.

No hard copies of assignments or solutions will be handed out. New assignments and solutions will be announced in class and/or the course mailing list, and will be available on the course web page.

Students must submit their assignments as PDF or Word files using the submit facility. The deadline for submission is midnight (Eastern time) on the day due. Any deadline extensions are up to the discretion of the instructor, and will be announced to the whole class. Extensions may be provided to individual students under extenuating circumstances.

No late assignments will be accepted and no partial credit will be given for late assignments without a valid excuse.

Homework and projects are individual assignments and students are required to submit their own solutions. All students are bound by the University's academic integrity policies (refer to the relevant section below).

 

Important DATES

Students need to pay attention to the following important dates:

Teaching Assistant

Guangchao Yuan is the TA for this course. Her office is in Room 1235 of the EB-II building.

Guangchao will hold office hours on Tuesday and Thursday from 10:00-11:00 am.

Alternatively, you may make an appointment outside her office hours by contacting her at gyuan@ncsu.edu .

Office HOURS

I will hold office hours on Mondays and wednesdays from 2-3 pm. I have an open door policy, so feel free to step in my office any time the door is open. Alternatively, we may arrange to meet outside my office hours at a time that is mutually convenient.

Academic Integrity

Students are required to respect the NC State academic integrity policies.