SIMULATION AND NETWORK PERFORMANCE

The course is aimed at introducing the main techniques of analysis and design for computer networks with particular focus on wireless networks, that, as of today, are fundamental in both private and professional communications. The course is made of two parts, that deal with the fundamental of wireless networks, and the analysis of their performance through modeling and simulation.
- understanding of the basis of wireless communications and wireless networks
- knowledge of the main formalisms for modelling computer and telecommunication system (with attention to the simulation models)
- a primer on interpreting simulation results with statistical instruments.

A graphical description of the course themes can be found on the professor website: https://www.dais.unive.it/~maccari/courses.html

At the end of the course the student will be able to:
- understand the challenges of wireless communications, be able to estimate the capacity of a channel under simple conditions, and perform a simple network planning
- program a simulator for the performance evaluation of a network protocol or a network architecture
- scientifically interpret the outcomes of a simulation experiment
- identify the “performance patterns” in a networking system

Students are assumed to have reached the learning objectives of the Probability e Statistics and Programming courses, although it is not formally required to have passed the exams. Specifically, students are expected to be familiar with:
- programming in a procedural or object orientated language like C++/Python
- knowledge of the basics tools of descriptive statistics (average, dispersion index)
- continuous and discrete random variables: moments, maximum likelihood estimators

- Elements of performance evaluation: bottlenecks, congestion collapse
- Classification of the simulators, design and challenges of discrete event simulators
- Wireless communications:
- Elements of the physics of communications: SNR, Shannon theorem, Friis law
- Deterministic and random Path loss models
- The IEEE 802.11 standard: the MAC layer, bit rates, concepts of MIMO and beamforming
- The omnet++ simulator, how to set-up a network simulation and extract results, condifence intervals for mean and media, i.i.d. condition
- How to interpret the simulation results, when to stop a simulation
- Markov chains to model real networks: the ALOHA protocol.

Notes and slides from the teacher (slides in Italian, support material in English)
Le Boudec: Performance Evaluation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems. CRC Press. 2011

The exam can be given in two ways:
- one written exam and an oral discussion
- one or two lab assignments (depending on the effort required by the exercise) and an oral discussion of the course topics

The written exam consists of open questions on the topics of the course and exercises. The exercises are aimed at verifying the student's skills on the application of theoretical models in problems. The open questions are aimed at verifying the theoretical knowledge of the student.
The lab projects verify the skills of the student on applying theoretical notions in practical situations.
NOTE: the evaluation mode, with particular reference to the realization of lab projects may change due to restrictions for the COVID pandemic

Frontal Lessons and seminars. The lessons will be held in English, the slides are in Italian, the supplemental material will be given in English.

English

written and oral