Welcome to CS 395495 Internet Architectures

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Welcome to CS 395/495Internet Architectures
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What is this class about? (1)

• Goal to help you understand what the future
  Internet will look like
• What is the problem with the current Internet
• What prevents new ideas from being quickly
  implemented in reality
• Review the architecture literature (old and new
  papers)
• Talk about several architectural issues
• Try to compose a coherent architecture

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What is this class about? (2)

• Goal to help you learn how to do the networking
  research
• Read research papers
• Argue and convey your ideas
• Execute a research project
• Write a research paper
• Test your ability to generate research ideas
• Learn about hot topics in networking

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Typical Path

• Pick a research topic (e.g., security, congestion
  control, ad-hoc wireless nets, etc.)
• Learn as much as you can about the topic (read
  papers)
• Generate a research idea (something that nobody
  else did before)
• Execute your idea (e.g., modeling, simulations,
  implementation, measurements)
• Write a paper and submit to a conference/journal
• Present the paper at a conference

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Typical Problems

• You may know a topic that you are interested in
• Yet, you dont know the related work
• It is sometimes hard to generate an idea, even if
  you know the related work
• By the time you come up with an idea, several
  quarters may pass (it took me 2 years!)

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How to do it all?

• Projects
• Ill provide you with a well-defined, yet open,
  research projects
• The goal is to generate quality networking
  research
• Classes
• Discuss various networking research topics
• Learn how to read papers
• Final
• Generate a research idea (something that nobody
  else did before), e.g. a new Internet
  architecture

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Process

• Amit, Ao-Jan, and Karl will be project leaders
• Each group will consist of 3 students (plus the
  leader)
• More about project topics next class

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Overview

• Administrative stuff
• Classes
• Reading papers
• Paper reviews
• Presentations/debating
• Project topics
• Projects
• Topics

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Course Overview Stuff

• Seminar class paper reading a big project
• Each class a new paper
• More on the class structure later
• Aleksandar Kuzmanovic (akuzma_at_northwestern.edu),
• Office Hours by appointment
• TA no TA

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Prerequisites and Course Materials

• Required CS340 (Intro to computer networking)
• Highly Recommended OS or having some familiarity
  with Unix systems programming
• No required textbook paper reading!
• Recommended
• Computer Networking A Top-Down Approach
  Featuring the Internet, KR, Second Edition,
  James Kurose and Keith Ross, Addison Wesley, 2005

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Grading

• No exams for this class
• Class 25
• Paper reading summary 7
• In class paper presentation and debating 10
• Class participation and discussion (when you are
  not directly debating) 8
• Project 55
• Proposal 5 (up to 1 page)
• Midterm presentation 5 (up to 5 pages)
• Project presentation 15
• Final report, 10 pages, 30
• Research idea 20
• Required, 3 pages

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Communication and Policies

• Web page http//www.cs.northwestern.edu/akuzma/c
  lasses/CS495-s07/
• Group e-mail intarc-s07_at_cs.northwestern.edu
• Send emails to instructor for questions
  inappropriate in newsgroup
• Paper reading summary is due by 2pm on Mon and
  Wed
• You can miss one paper summary without any
  negative points

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Overview

• Administrative stuff
• Classes
• Topics
• Paper readings and reviews
• Presentations/debating
• Research ideas
• Projects
• Topics

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Course Topics

• Network Architectures
• How should the future Internet look like?
• How to build this new network?
• How should the control and management planes of
  the future Internet look like?
• How should the new network solve the problem of
  security and denial-of-service attacks?
• How will routing look like?
• Do we need congestion control and what will it
  look like?
• 2 FIND proposal examples

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Reading papers

• Why read?
• Decide what to read
• Reading for breadth build a framework
• Reading in depth Challenge what you read
• if you will lead a debate

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Reviews

• Should
• Point out the paper's contributions, strengths as
  well as weaknesses.
• Think in terms of what makes good research?
• Challenge how does a good architecture paper
  look like?
• What qualities make a good paper?
• What are the potential future impacts of the
  work?
• Note that there is no right or wrong answer to
  these questions
• A review's quality will mainly depend on its
  thoughtfulness.
• Restating the abstract/conclusion of the paper
  will not earn a top grade.

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Writing Reviews (2)

• Write a very brief summary of each paper, to be
  emailed to me before the class (.txt please)
• Summary should include
• Paper title and its author(s)
• A short paragraph summary (what is this paper
  about?)
• A paragraph of the most significant new
  insight(s) you took away from the paper (what is
  good? what is the contribution?)
• A paragraph of the one or two most significant
  flaw(s) of the paper (what is bad?)
• Explain what reference would you read next and
  why
• Give a grade to the paper (1-5)

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Overview

• Administrative stuff
• Classes
• Topics
• Paper readings and reviews
• Presentations/debating
• Research idea
• Projects
• Topics

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Defense (1)

• 30 minutes should present as if it were his/her
  own
• The point is to make a compelling case why the
  contribution is significant.
• the context of the contribution,
• prior work,
• If an older paper how the work has influenced
  the research community or industry's directions
  (impact)
• If newer paper arguments for the potential
  impact

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Defense (2)

• should go well beyond a paper "summary
• The defense should not critique the work other
  than to try to pre-empt attacks from the offense
  (e.g., by explicitly limiting the scope of the
  contribution).
• The defense should also try to look up related
  work to support their case

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Offense (1)

• 20 minutes
• Should critique the work, and make a case for
• missing links, unaddressed issues, lack of
  impact, inappropriateness of the problem
  formulation, etc.
• The more insightful and less obvious the
  criticisms the better
• While the offense should prepare remarks in
  advance, they should also react to the points
  made by the defense.
• Hint The offense should also try to look up
  related work to support their case

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Offense (2)

• The defense and offense will be allowed follow up
  arguments
• The class will question either side either for
  clarifications or to add to the discussions and
  controversy and make their own points on either
  side.
• Use Powerpoint (feel free to use existing
  presentations from the Web)

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Overview

• Administrative stuff
• Classes
• Topics
• Paper readings and reviews
• Presentations/debating
• Research ideas
• Projects
• Topics

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Research Idea (1)

• At the end of semester, you should hand in a
  research proposal
• 3 pages including references
• Something that nobody else did before
• What would you do?
• How would you do it?

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Research idea (2)

• Writing the research-idea documents
• What is the main idea?
• Why is it important/interesting?
• What is the related work?
• What would you actually do?
• How would you execute the idea
• Modeling, simulations, experiments?
• What is the expected outcome?

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Overview

• Administrative stuff
• Classes
• Topics
• Paper readings and reviews
• Presentations/debating
• Research idea
• Projects
• Topics (next class)

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Timetable

• Week 1 (Wednesday 3/28) Project presentations by
  group leaders
• Week 2 (Monday 4/2) Form groups of 3, choose a
  topic for your project, and meet with the project
  leader.
• Week 3 (Monday 4/9) Write an introduction
  describing the problem and how you plan to
  approach it (what will you actually do?). Include
  motivation (why does the problem matter?) and
  related work (what have others already done about
  it?). 2 pages total.
• Week 6 (Monday 4/30) Midterm presentation. Update
  your paper to include your preliminary results. 5
  pages total.
• Week 10 (Wednesday 5/30) Presentations by all
  groups.
• Week 11 (Friday 6/8) Turn in your completed
  paper. 10 pages total.