Final Exam Study Guide
CSE/EE 461: Introduction to Computer Communication Networks
Autumn 1997

Final Exam, Monday, December 15, 1997, 8:30 - 10:20 am

• Policies
  • The exam covers the entire course.
  • Each students must have an 8 1/2 by 11 inch blue book.
  • The blue book can contain a student's hand written notes. Please leave pages in your blue book for the actual exam. No other notes or books are allowed.
  • You may use a calculator.
  • The exam begins promply at 8:30 am and ends at 10:20, when the blue book is closed.
• Study advice:
  • Be selective in putting notes into your blue book.
  • Form study groups to help and motivate each other.
  • Do old exams in an exam-like setting.
  • Practice your problem solving skills.
  • Do not memorize. Study for understanding, not for memory.
• Topics covered:
  • Concepts of bandwidth, delay (latency), and utilization. Analyzing problems related to these concepts.
  • Network Architecture. Relationship between the layers. The OSI model. Addresses, fragmentation. Understanding repeaters, switches, routers, and gateways.
  • The physical layer. Nyquist's and Shannon's equations for limits on bit rate.
  • Multiplexing and switching. Packet switching. Distinguishing internal virtual circuits from datagrams.
  • The data link layer. Framing, error correction and detection, CRC, bit stuffing.
  • Data link protocols. PAR, alternating bit, sliding windows with go-back-N and selective repeat policies. Data structures for time outs. Verification of protocols. Understanding utilization issues related to data link protocols. Basic understanding of HDLC, PPP, and ATM.
  • Elementary probabilistic analysis and simple Markov chain analysis.
  • MAC layer protocols. Aloha, 1-persistent, p-persistent, non-persitent broadcast protocols. Ethernet exponential backoff. Binary tree protocol. Collision free protocols: reservation, token bus, token ring. Understanding the utilization issues of MAC layer protocols.
  • Network protocols. Sevices provided to and by the network layer. Virtual circuit vs. datagram networks. Routing tables. Circuit tables. Distance vector routing and shortest path routing. Alternative routing schemes. Multicast routing including multidestination, spanning tree, and reverse path routing. Multicast routing tables and RSVP. Congestion control: preventive and reactive. Buffer pool management. Flow control and traffic shaping including leaky bucket, token bucket and fair queing.
  • Internetworking. IP: addresses, Classless InterDomain Routing (CIDR), hierarchical routing. Address Resolution Protocols for LANs. OSPF and BGP for routing in the internet. IP version 6.
  • The transport layer. Serviced provided to and by the transport layer. Connection control, flow control and error control. TCP and Sockets. TCP segments and transmission policy. Slow start congestion control. Managing timeouts.
  • Network security. Cryptography: private key and public key. DES and RSA. Using public key encryption for digital signatures. Social issues.
  • Data compression (if we get this far). Lossless and lossy compression. Huffman coding. Scalar quantization. Compression methods: Ziv-Lempel, GIF, JPEG, MPEG.
• Reading
  • Chapter 1
    Sections
    1.1
    1.2
    1.3
    1.4
    
  • Chapter 2
    Sections
    2.1.3
    2.3.1
    2.4.4
    2.4.5
    2.6.1
    2.8.3
    2.9
    
  • Chapter 3
    Sections
    3.1
    3.2
    3.3
    3.4
    3.5 intro
    3.5.1
    3.6
    
  • Chapter 4
    Sections
    4.1
    4.2 intro
    4.2.1
    4.2.2
    4.2.3
    4.3 intro
    4.3.1
    4.3.2
    4.3.3
    4.3.4
    4.5 intro
    4.5.1
    4.5.2
    
  • Chapter 5
    Sections
    5.1
    5.2 intro
    5.2.1
    5.2.2
    5.2.3
    5.2.5
    5.2.6
    5.2.7
    5.2.9
    5.2.10
    5.3 intro
    5.3.1
    5.3.2
    5.3.3
    5.3.4
    5.3.5
    5.3.6
    5.3.7
    5.3.8
    5.3.9
    5.4 intro
    5.4.1
    5.4.2
    5.4.3
    5.4.4
    5.4.5
    5.4.6
    5.4.7
    5.5 intro
    5.5.1
    5.5.2
    5.5.4
    5.5.9
    5.5.10
    
  • Chapter 6
    Sections
    6.1 intro
    6.1.1
    6.1.2
    6.1.3
    6.2 intro
    6.2.1
    6.2.2
    6.2.3
    6.2.3
    6.2.4
    6.4 intro
    6.4.1
    6.4.2
    6.4.3
    6.4.4
    6.4.5
    6.4.6
    6.4.7
    
  • Chapter 7
    Sections
    7.1 intro
    7.1.1
    7.1.2
    7.1.3
    7.1.4
    7.1.6
    7.6 intro
    7.6.1
    7.6.2
    7.6.3
    7.7.3