EE384X: Packet Switch Architectures - I
3 units, Winter 2008
Nick McKeown, Balaji Prabhakar
Lectures: Mon Wed 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM,
CummsArt 4
Review session: Friday 11-12:15, Packard 277
Final Exam: Thursday, March 20, 8:30am-11:30am
Course Description
384X Packet Switch Architectures I: The theory and practice of
designing packet switches, such as Internet routers, Ethernet switches
and ATM switches. Introduction: evolution of switches and routers.
Output scheduling: motivation for providing bandwidth and delay
guarantees; fairness; active queue management and packet dropping
schemes. Switching: example architectures, performance metrics; unicast
switching: blocking phenomena, connections with bipartite graph
matching, practical algorithms; unicast switching with speedup;
multicast switching. Address lookup: exact and longest prefix matches,
performance metrics, hardware and software solutions. Packet
classifiers: for firewalls and policy-based routing; graphical
description; Theoretical complements: basic queuing models, graph
matching algorithms, stability through Lyapunov functions, fluid models.
Prerequisites: EE284/CS244a and familiarity with
probability (for example, from EE178, EE278, or Statistics 116.)
Recommended: CS161
Note: EE384X is the first of a two part course being held
over Win, Spr. The syllabus for the two courses are:
EE384X:
Part I: Output Queued Switches (Emphasis on Deterministic Analysis)
Part II: Input Queued Switches (Emphasis on Probabilistic Analysis)
EE384Y:
Part III: Other Switch Architectures
Part IV: Other Switch Functions
Announcements
Watch this page for regular updates.
- The take home midterm will be handed out on Monday, Feb. 25, and due back, in class on Wednesday, Feb. 27.
- Nick and Balaji's office hours are posted. Please check under the Staff tab.
- The class newsgroup su.class.ee384x is up and running. This is the prefered method
for questions related to homeworks, and course materials.
- The first review session will be Friday, Jan. 11, at 460-301.
- Instructions
on how to connect to Stanford newsgroups with
Microsoft Outlook
- Please register at eeclass in order to check your grades and
receive handouts during the quarter.
- Please read the FAQ page for some class related logistics. This
is especially important for SITN students.
- You need to download texpoint in order to
read the equations in the ppt files correctly.
- To see whether you have enough background in probability and
stochastic processes in order to take this class, please take a look at
the review session slides. These materials are supposed to be a review,
and you should have seen most of them before.
Grading
- Homeworks : 40% (5 Homeworks, 8% each)
- Midterm : 20%
- Final : 30%
- Surprise Quizzes : 10%
Useful Links
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