UM EECS 589

Please see the course's Reading List for the papers we will be reading this semester. There is no textbook for this course. For background review and reference, you may find the following textbooks useful:

Huitema, C., Routing in the Internet, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, 2000.
Keshav, S., An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking, Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Kurose and Ross, ``Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach,'' Addison-Wesley, 2000.
Peterson and Davie, ``Computer Networks: A Systems Approach,'' 2nd ed., Morgan Kaufmann, 2000.
Stevens, ``UNIX Network Programming, vol. 1: Networking APIs: Sockets and XTI,'' 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, 1997.
Tanenbaum, A., Computer Networks, 3rd ed., Prentice-Hall, 1996.
Wright and Stevens, TCP/IP Illustrated v.2, Addison-Wesley.

In this course we study the Internet; we study the protocols and architectures that make the Internet tick and allow it to grow beyond its designers' wildest dreams. We will investigate the design principles and architectural considerations that have allowed the Internet to survive the onslaught of the World-Wide Web. Most importantly, we ask where to take the Internet from here. For those interested in exploring and advancing the state of the art in computer networking, this is a required course.

Aside from EECS 489, an introductory probability course such as EECS 401, EECS 501, Math 425, Math 525, or Stat 412 is highly recommended as a co-requisite.

It is an understatement to say that computer networking, in the forms of the Internet and the World-Wide-Web, has had a much felt impact on our daily lifes. When the Internet was first designed in the mid 70's, it was never intended to provide virtual tours of the Vatican. Yet it has done so without melting down (yet). In this course, we will study the design philosophy and architectural choices that make the Internet scalable. We will look at how the Internet has continually evolved to accommodate new usages and applications. And most importantly, we will study the issues facing the Internet architectures of today to bring the Net into the next century, to carry not just email and low bandwidth phone calls, but high-quality realtime streams. In the end, what we will be studying is not just the Internet, but how to build scalable and sustainable global computer and communication networks.

I have created a Forum where you can post your questions, musing, opinions, predictions of the current and future states of the Internet. You can also send me email directly. I will reply to private email privately, but may summarize some Q&A's to the forum without mentioning your name.