Architecture of Communication Networks (bilingual)

This is the unofficial home page of the English part of the lecture "Architecture of Communication Networks (bilingual)". I will provide material for this course on this web page in addition to Aula Global for some time.

Slides for the Theoretical Sessions

You can download the PDFs (2x2 per page) from the lecture slides using the links below.

Slides without the Background Graphics

To create these slides, I only deleted the background images from the master template to reduce the size of the PDF files. These slides are the latest version of the above slides including all changes.

Chapter 1 (0.4MB)
Chapter 2, part I (1.9MB)
Chapter 2, part II (1.9MB)
Chapter 2, part III (0.5MB)
Chapter 3 (0.8MB)
Chapter 4 (1.2MB)
Chapter 5, part I (1.0MB)
Chapter 5, part II (0.7MB)
Chapter 6, part I (0.4MB)
Chapter 6, part II (0.6MB)
Chapter 6, part III (0.7MB)
Chapter 7 (0.5MB)
Chapter 7, part II (0.9MB). These slides are taken from a presentation by Henry Sinnreich and Alan Johnston. (thanks to them for providing the slides for public usage). (Local copy)

Material for the Presentations

The topics for the presentations in January.
The schedule is now as follows:

Monday, 12/1/2004:
- Eduardo Fernandez Matamala and Aurora Agudo de Carlos: Transition mechanisms IPv4/IPv6: Translators
- Jose Maria Gonzalez Calabozo and Antonio de la Oliva Delgado: Mechanisms for IPv4/IPv6 transition: 6over4 tunnels and ISATAP
Monday, 19/1/2004:
- Lukas Zebedin and Francisco Fernandez Escudero: IPsec
- Eduardo Salagaray Cepeda and Jesús Martínez Casadiego: Quality of Service in Local Area Networks

Material for the Laboratory Practices

First laboratory practice. NEW: To complete the first practice, there are now some traces available which you can view in ethereal.
Second laboratory practice

Past Exams

A collection of tasks from past exams (partly with solutions). Unfortunately, they are in Spanish only (but I will translate them if you request me to do so).

A collection of theoretical questions from previous exams (to be answered without books, sketches or the like).

Announcements, Comments, Schedule etc.

First teaching quality feedback meeting (together with the Spanish coordinator of the lecture): Thursday, 7th of November 2003, 13:10 (at the beginning of the lecture).

Additional Material, Links, etc.

General Bibliography

J. Crowcroft, M. Handley, I. Wakeman: Internetworking Multimedia, UCL Press, 1998. Also available online

Chapter 2

Part I

The RIRs:

RIPE's IPv4 address assignment policies
An article on how the RIRs developed.
RFC 790: The class-based IP addressing scheme
An FAQ on CIDR (a bit old, some links no longer working)
RFC 1860: Variable Length Subnet Table For IPv4
RFC 1519: Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR): an Address Assignment and Aggregation Strategy
RFC 1771: A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)
BGP-4 is currently in the process of being updated. Look here for the latest Internet Draft.
RFC 1997: BGP Communities Attributes
RFC 1403: BGP OSPF Interaction

Part II: Peering

W. Norton: Internet Service Providers and Peering
W. Norton: The Art of Peering: The Peering Playbook
W. Norton: Interconnection Strategies for ISPs
The European Exchange Point Euro-IX
The Spanish Exchange Point Espanix

Part III: NAT

RFC 1631: The IP Network Address Translator
RFC 2663: The IP Network Address Translator (NAT): Terminology and Considerations
L. Phifer. The Trouble with NAT, Internet Protocol Journal, Cisco Press, Dec. 2000.
RFC 2993: Architectural Implications of NAT

Chapter 3: Introduction to Multicast

RFC 1112: Host Extensions for IP Multicasting
RFC 2236: Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 2.
RFC 3376: Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 3.
RFC 2365: Administratively Scoped IP Multicast
The Multicast over TCP/IP Howto
Collection of Multicast issues (hosted by cisco)
M. Handley, J. Crowcroft. Introduction to IP Multicast, Internet Protocol Journal, Cisco, December 1999

Chapter 4: Multicast Routing

M. Handley, J. Crowcroft. Introduction to IP Multicast, Internet Protocol Journal, Cisco, December 1999
RFC 1075: Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol
Internet Draft: Protocol Independent Multicast - Dense Mode (PIM-DM): Protocol Specification (Revised)
RFC 1584: Multicast Extensions to OSPF
RFC 2201: Core Based Trees (CBT) Multicast Routing Architecture
RFC 2362: Protocol Independent Multicast-Sparse Mode (PIM-SM): Protocol Specification
Internet Draft: Protocol Independent Multicast - Sparse Mode (PIM-SM): Protocol Specification (Revised)
RFC 2730: Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP)

Chapter 5: IPv6

Part I: Introduction to IPv6

RFC 2460: Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification
RFC 791: Darpa Internet Program Protocol Specification (The IPv4 specification for comparison to IPv6)
R.L. Fink. IPv6-What and Where It Is, Internet Protocol Journal, Cisco, March 1999
M. Souissi. IPv6 Tutorial, RIPE 43 Meeting. Local copy of the PDF
The Internet Host Survey Count.
RFC 2711: IPv6 Router Alert Option
RFC 1981: Path MTU Discovery for IP version 6
RFC 3513: IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture. This is in the process of being updated (cf. the IPv6 working group web page). The main intention is to drop site-local addresses.
RFC 2710: Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) for IPv6
RFC 2463: Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6). This is in the process of being updated (cf the IPv6 working group web page)
RFC 2461: Neighbor Discovery for IP Version 6 (IPv6)
RFC 2462: IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
RFC 3315: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6)
RFC 3596: DNS Extensions to support IP version 6
RFC 3493: Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6
RFC 3542: Advanced Sockets Application Program Interface (API) for IPv6
Linux IPv6

Part II: IPv4/IPv6 Transition Mechanisms

RFC 2893: Transition Mechanisms for IPv6 Hosts and Routers
RFC 2765: Stateless IP/ICMP Translation Algorithm (SIIT)
RFC 2766: Network Address Translation - Protocol Translation (NAT-PT)
RFC 2767: Dual Stack Hosts using the "Bump-In-the-Stack" Technique (BIS)
RFC 3056: Connection of IPv6 Domains via IPv4 Clouds
Connecting IPv6 Routing Domains Over the IPv4 Internet

Chapter 6: Quality of Service

Part I: Introduction to Quality of Service in Packet-Switched Networks

Quality of Service: Fact or Fiction?
J. Crowcroft, M. Handley, I. Wakeman: Internetworking Multimedia, UCL Press, 1998. Also available online

Part II: Scheduling

A. K. Parekh, R. G. Gallager. A Generalized Processor Sharing Approach to Flow Control in Integrated Services Networks: The Single-Node Case. IEEE ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 1, Nr. 3, June 1993 (restricted online access from inside the university only)
M. Shreedhar, George Varghese: Efficient Fair Queuing using Deficit Round Robin, IEEE ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 4, Nr. 3, June 1996 (restricted online access from inside the university only)
RFC 2211: Specification of the Controlled-Load Network Element Service
RFC 2212: Specification of Guaranteed Quality of Service

Part III: Integrated Services and Differentiated Services

P.P. White: RSVP and integrated services in the Internet: a tutorial, IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol. 35, Nr. 5, May 1997 (restricted online access from inside the university only)
RFC 2474: Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 headers
RFC 2475: An Architecture for Differentiated Services.
RFC 2638: A Two-bit Differentiated Services Architecture for the Internet.
RFC 2597: Assured Forwarding PHB Group
RFC 3246: An Expedited Forwarding PHB
RFC 3086: Definition of Differentiated Services Per Domain Behaviors and Rules for their Specification
RFC 2998: A Framework for Integrated Services Operation over Diffserv Networks.

Chapter 7: Multimedia Applications

H. Schulzrinne, J. Rosenberg: A Comparison of SIP and H.323 for Internet Technology, Proc. of NOSSDAV, Cambridge, U.K. Jul. 1998.
J. Glasmann, W. Kellerer, H. Müller: Service Architectures in H.323 and SIP: A Comparison., IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, Fourth Quarter 2003, Vol. 5, No.2.
W. Stallings: The Session Initiation Protocol, Internet Protocol Journal, Cisco, December 1999
RFC 3261: SIP: Session Initiation Protocol.
RFC 3550: RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications.
Collection of links for SIP and Internet Telephony