This course focuses on broadly applicable methodologies in the field of communication networks, putting special emphasis upon the evaluation of performance therein. A distinctive feature of this course lies in its combination of questions in everyday life and practical problems in communication networks with selected topics in methodologies. In order to help students to gain a better understanding of the methodologies and its applications, the course also contains a set of homework assignments and a project. The textbook can be referred to throughout the academic and industrial careers of students for tackling out various problems in both fields.
§ Content of Lectures
In order to achieve the abovementioned learning outcomes, there are about 11-12 lectures (2 hours) primarily based on the main textbook. The lectures will cover various topics in performance evaluation of communication networks: Summarizing Data (Topic 1), Model Fitting (Topic 2), Tests (Topic 3), Discrete Event Simulation (Topic 4), Palm Calculus (Topic 5), Queuing Theory for Dummies (Topic 6).
§ Review Question Session
Each group of students will present how to solve a few (1-3) selected review questions within a short time (no more than 5 minutes). All review questions and their complete solutions for each topic will be provided by the examiner.
§ Homework Assignments
Introductory Performance Data Summarizations, Random Waypoint Simulation, Queuing Theory from Palm Viewpoint, Web Server Simulation (Queuing Network)
§ Project Assignment (Group work)
Each group will define a performance evaluation problem in their thesis projects or ongoing research projects and apply methodologies in the course to analyse the problem. If it is impossible for a group to find an appropriate problem, the group will give a talk about a topic or a research paper closely related to performance evaluation in networking.