The Internet is one of the most successful technology achievements. In less than 30 years, the Internet has grown from a small experimental network that served as a playground for researchers to a global infrastructure that connects hundreds of millions of people. IP, the technical foundation of Internet, is widely regarded, by both the general and technical communities, to be the convergence technology layer for all communication infrastructures and services. Most networking researchers today are working on solutions that incrementally improve the Internet with the implicit assumption that radical new solutions are not needed or have no chance of ever being deployed.
In this advanced networking course for Ph.D students, we will explore an alternative research approach that asks the following question: Given the benefit of hindsight and our current understanding of network requirements and technologies, if we were not bound by existing design decisions and would be able to design the network from first principles (a clean slate design), how should we do it? We will read/discuss/critique a number of papers that cover the historical perspective and various research issues. To draw inspiration and appreciate the differences and commonalities between networking and other systems research, we will also read and discuss some classic papers from other systems areas such as operating systems, computer architecture, and distributed systems.
A key component of the class is a research project that does a clean state design of one component of computer networks.
The class is expected to be research-oriented and highly interactive. Audit is NOT allowed. Students should have taken 15-744 or equivalent.