Course Outline

1. Network Hardware
   1. Broadcast, PPP, LAN, WAN
2. Network Software
   1. Network Layers, Connection and Connectionless Network, Quality of Service (QoS), OSI and TCP/IP Framework
3. Data Transmission
   1. Physical Layer, Impairments, Data Rate Spectrum, Frequency and Time Domain, DC Component, Bandwidth & Data Rate, Channel Capacity, Shannon's Sampling Theorem
4. Data Encoding
   1. NRZ, Baseline Wander, NRZI, Manchester Encoding, Baud Rate it Stuffing 4B/5B, Differential Encoding, Scrambling
5. Modulation
   1. Amplitude Shift Keying, Frequency Shift Keying, Phase Shift Keying, Quadrature Phase Shift Keying
6. Transmission Media
   1. Guided, Unguided, Interference, Spectrum Twisted Pair (S/U), Coaxial Cable, Optical Fiber
7. Data Link Layer (DLL)
   1. Frames, Flow Control, Stop and Wait, Fragmentation, Sliding Windows, Error Correction and Detection, Parity EDC, Hamming Distance, CRC, Error Control, Stop & Wait ARQ, Go Back-N ARQ, Selective Reject ARQ, HDLC, SLIP, PPP
8. Medium Access Control (MAC)
   1. Fixed Assignment Protocols: TDMA, FDMA, CDMA, Random Assignment Protocols: Aloha, CSMA, CSMA/CD, Demand Assignment Protocols: Token Passing, Polling
9. Bridges
   1. Transparent, No-Frills, Learning Bridges, Root Bridge, Spanning Trees, Dijkestra's Algorithm, Distributed Spanning Tree Algorithm, Bridges Limitations
10. Network Layer
    1. Responsibilities, TCP/IP Layers, TCP, UDP, ICMP, IP, IGMP, ARP, RARP, IP Packet Fields, Fragmentation & Reassembly, Address Translation, ARP Packet Fields, ICMP Types
11. Routing in Packet Switched Networks
    1. Packet Switched Network, Routing Protocol, Forwarding v Routing, Factors affecting routing, Distance Vector Routing, Bellman-Ford Algorithm, Periodic v Triggered Updates, Bouncing Effect, Solutions- (i) Holddowns, (ii) Split Horizon. Link State Protocol (LSP), OSPF, Link State Packets, Flooding, Lollipop Operation
12. IP Addressing
    1. Packets, Global Addresses, DNS, Datagram Forwarding, Address Translation, Host Configuration (DHCP), IP Address Classes, Subnet Addressing, Subnet Mask, CIDR, NAT, NAPT
13. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
    1. Autonomous Systems (AS), Internet Exchange Points (IXP), AS Relationships, Intradomain & Interdomain routing protocols, Local Preference, Community Attribute, Multi Exist Discriminator (MED), Import, Export & Path Selection policies. Origin Attribute (IGP, EGP or Incomplete), BGP Session
14. TCP Mechanism
    1. Transport Layer, UDP, TCP Header, Connection Establishment, Initial Sequence Number (ISN) Selection, Flow Control, TCP Sliding Window, Connection Tear-Down, RTT and Re transmission Time Estimation
15. Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
    1. Generic Connection Oriented Network, ATM Cells, Connection Identifier, Virtual Path and Circuit. ATM Cell Formats, ATM Services, ATM Stack, Adaptation Layers, AAL, AAL1, AAL3/4, AAL5 Frame Format, SSCOP
16. Flow Control
    1. Open Loop, Closed Loop, Hybrid. Traffic Descriptors, Leaky Bucket, Taxonomy, Flow Control Window, Explicit v Implicit, Hop-by-Hop v End-to-End, On-Off, Stop & Wait, Static Window TCP versions, Evaluation, Trace
17. Queuing Mechanisms
    1. Fair Queuing, Packet Drop Dimensions, Random early Detection, RED Algorithm, RED Operation, Drop Probability, RED Penalty Box
18. Mobile IP
    1. Cellular Communication, Terminology, Discovering Agents, Registration, Tunneling, Tunneling IP Header, Foreign Agent Handoff, Route Optimization, Wireless TCP, Snooping
19. Domain Name Service (DNS)
    1. Iterated Queries, Caching & Updating Records, DNS Protocol Messages and Records Format

Text Books

1. William Stallings, "Data and Computer Communications", 6th Edition, Prentice-Hall, 2000

2. Andrew S.Tanenbaum, "Computer Networks", 3rd Edition, Prentice-Hall, 1996

3. Radia Perlman, "Interconnections - Bridges, Routers, Switches and Internetworking Protocols", 2nd Edition, Addison-Wesley