Fall 2014
Instructor: Dr. Cliff Zou (HEC 243), 407-823-5015, czou@cs.ucf.edu
Course Time: MoWe 12:00pm – 1:15pm , ENG1-384
Office Hour: MoWe 10:15am-11:45am
Prerequisite: Senior standing or graduate student. Knowledge on probability and statistics. Knowledge on a computer networking course (such as CNT3004 or CNT4704).
Syllabus: (PDF Syllabus)
This course
provides an introduction to the techniques and tools needed to
construct and analyze performance models of computer systems and
communication networks. Such skills are indispensable for
research-related careers. After finishing this course, a student
will: (1). Obtain the fundamental theoretical analysis techniques
including probability, stochastic and queuing network techniques;
(2). Be able to use several useful simulation and modeling tools,
such as Matlab and NS2, to conduct basic performance modeling and
network simulation tasks; and (3). Understand how to conduct their
own performance analysis in the future by learning many classic
examples of performance analysis in real-world computer and
networking applications.
In order to let students truly learn through this
course useful knowledge and techniques in the long term, this
course emphasizes on student involvement by focusing on
experiments and programming projects. In order not to put heavy
workload on students, the course will assign fewer handwritten
homework, has no final exam (replaced by term project on
experiment and programming), and let 2 students form as one group
in most projects.
The tentative outline of this course is:
1. Review of probability and stochastic theory.
2. Basic queuing theory.
3. Performance simulation and modeling tools (such as
NS2 and Matlab).
4. Discrete-time and continous-time simulation
techniques.
5. Case study of performance evaluation of some
real-world applications (such as BitTorrent simulation and
evaluation, Internet worm modeling and simulation).
Course Materials:
Reference
textbooks:
1. Introduction to Probability Models, Ninth
Edition by Sheldon M. Ross.
2. Simulation, fouth edition by Sheldon M. Ross.
Reference resources:
1. Course: CMPSCI673 -
Performance Evaluation, by Don Towsley, UMass.
2. Course: COMS6180
- Modeling
and Performance Evaluation, by Visal Misra, Columbia
University.
Online
Video Streaming:
We will use UCF Tegrity system. Each lecture’s video will be
posted online about two hours after the corresponding face-to-face
lecture time. We will also use WebCourse for student discussions,
questions and answers, homework/project assignment and submission.
In Webcourse, you can find the URL link to Tegrity recording at
the left "Module" tab.
Grading Policy:
The final grade will use +/- policy, i.e., you may get A, A-, B+, B, B- … grade.
Coursework Approx amount approx %
written
homework
2
20%
Programming projects
5
60%
midterm exam (open book)
1
20%