CS 856: Advanced Topics in Distributed Systems:
802.11 Network Performance

Possible Readings

• Possible Readings

There may be two different types of summaries for different types of papers. Research papers will require research paper summaries. Other papers (e.g., survey papers) will require a survey paper summary. The format of these can be found by following the links below.

Paper Summaries

• Information and examples

Background / Helpful Readings

• Paper Reading Check List,
  Sugih Jamin, jamin@eecs.umich.edu.
• How to Read a Research Paper,
  by Spencer Rugaber
• Efficient Reading of Papers in Science and Technology
  Prepared by Michael J. Hanson, Updated by Dylan J. McNamee, January 6, 2000.
• How to Read a Paper
  S. Keshav, ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Volume 37, Number 3, July 2007.

Readings / Course Schedule

• Week 0: First Class
  Friday Jan 10, 2014
  No readings this week.
  
  
• Week 1: Simulation, Emulation and Experiments
  Friday Jan 17, 2014
  NOTE: I'm frontloading the readings a bit (i.e., we will read more papers per week at the beginning of the term than the later part of the term) because I will be away Feb 7 and to get people some background to start thinking about project. Research Paper Summaries are required for all 3 papers and are due before Wed Jan 15 at noon.
  
  See the information via the link above (Paper Summaries -- Information and Examples) and follow instructions there. Note names for this week will be yourname-1-1.pdf, yourname-1-2.pdf and yourname-1.3.pdf.
  1. Enabling Accurate Cross-Layer PHY/MAC/NET Simulation Studies of Vehicular Communication Networks,
     Jens Mittag, Stylianos Papanastasiou, Hannes Hartenstein, EEE, Erik G. Strom,
     Proceedings of the IEEE (Volume:99, Issue: 7), pp. 1311-1326, July, 2011.
  2. Using Emulation to Understand and Improve Wireless Networks and Applications,
     Glenn Judd and Peter Steenkiste,
     NSDI, 2005.
  3. Robust Rate Adaptation for 802.11 Wireless Networks,
     Starsky H.Y. Wong, Hao Yang, Songwu Lu and Vaduvur Bharghavan,
     MobiCom, 2006.
  
  
• Week 2: Traces
  Friday Jan 24, 2014
  Research Paper Summaries are required for both papers and are
  due before Thursday Jan 23 at noon.
  1. Analyzing the MAC-level Behavior of Wireless Networks in the Wild
     Ratul Mahajan, Maya Rodrig, David Wetherall and John Zahorjan,
     SIGCOMM, 2006.
  2. NOTE: this paper is available through the course Piazza page.
     You will need to sign up for the course on Piazza to access this paper.
     The link below takes you to the posting where the paper is available.
     T-RATE: A Framework for the Trace-Driven Evaluation of 802.11 Rate Adaptation Algorithms
     Ali Abedi and Tim Brecht
     Under submission.
  
  
• Week 3: Acess Point Selection and Handoff
  Friday Jan 31, 2014
  Research Paper Summaries are required for both papers and are
  due before Thursday Jan 30 at noon.
  Note: Submitted file names should be yourname-3-1.pdf and yourname-3-2.pdf.
  1. Facilitating Access Point Selection in IEEE 802.11 Wireless Networks,
     S. Vasudevan, K. Papagiannaki, C. Diot, J. Kurose, D. Towsley,
     IMC, 2005.
  2. Using Smart Triggers for Improved User Performance in 802.11 Wireless Networks,
     Vivek Mhatre and Konstantina Papagiannaki
     MobiSys, 2006.
  
  
• Week 4: Guest Lecture: Ali Abedi -- 802.11 Background and Equipment Demo
  Friday Feb 7, 2014
  No papers to read for this week.
  Ali will cover some background material and also provide demonstrations of some of the equipment we have used when conducting experiments.
  Slides are available via Piazza.
  
  
• Week 5: Project Proposals
  Friday Feb 14, 2014
  Slides due Thursday Feb 13 at noon. PDF only.
  
  
• Week 6: Software Defined Radio
  Friday Feb 21, 2014
  Research Paper Summaries are required for both papers and are
  due before Thursday Feb 20 at noon.
  Note: Submitted file names should be yourname-6-1.pdf and yourname-6-2.pdf.
  1. Enabling MAC Protocol Implementations on Software-Defined Radios,
     George Nychis, Thibaud Hottelier, Zhuocheng Yang, Srinivasan Seshan, Peter Steenkiste,
     NSDI, 2009.
  2. Airblue: A System for Cross-Layer Wireless Protocol Development
     Man Cheuk Ng, Kermin Elliott Fleming, Mythili Vutukuru, Samuel Gross, Arvind, and Hari Balakrishnan,
     ANCS, 2010.
  
  
• Week 7: Enterprise Network Design
  Friday Feb 28, 2014
  Research Paper Summaries are required for both papers and are
  due before Thursday Feb 27 at noon.
  Note: Submitted file names should be yourname-7-1.pdf and yourname-7-2.pdf.
  1. Designing High Performance Enterprise Wi-Fi Networks
     Rohan Murty, Jitendra Padhye, Ranveer Chandra, Alec Wolman, Brian Zill,
     NSDI, 2008.
  2. CENTAUR: Realizing the Full Potential of Centralized WLANs through a Hybrid Data Path,
     V. Shrivastava, N. Ahmed, S. Rayanchu, S. Banerjee, S. Keshav, K. Papagiannaki, A. Mishra,
     MobiCom, 2009.
  
  
• Week 8: Professor is Away
  Friday March 7, 2014
  NO CLASS (Having class on Feb 21 instead)
  
  
  
• Week 9: 802.11n
  Friday March 14, 2014
  Research Paper Summaries are required for both papers and are
  due before Thursday March 13 at noon.
  Note: Submitted file names should be yourname-9-1.pdf and yourname-9-2.pdf.
  1. 802.11n Under the Microscope,
     Vivek Shrivastava, Shravan Rayanchu, Jongwon Yoon, Suman Banerjee
     IMC, 2008.
  2. The Impact of Channel Bonding on 802.11n Network Management
     Lara Deek, Eduard Garcia-Villegas, Elizabeth Belding, Sung-Ju Lee, Kevin Almeroth,
     ACM CoNEXT, 2011.
  
  
• Week 10: More Rate Adaptation
  Friday March 21, 2014
  Research Paper Summaries are required for both papers and are
  due before Thursday March 20 at noon.
  Note: Submitted file names should be yourname-10-1.pdf and yourname-10-2.pdf.
  1. AccuRate: Constellation Based Rate Estimation in Wireless Networks,
     Souvik Sen, Naveen Santhapuri, Romit Roy Choudhury, Srihari Nelakuditi,
     NSDI, 2010.
  2. MIMO Rate Adaptation in 802.11n Wireless Networks,
     Ioannis Pefkianakis, Yun Hu, Starsky H.Y. Wong, Hao Yang, Songwu Lu,
     MobiCom, 2010.
  
  
• Week 11: Rate Adaptation
  Friday March 28, 2014
  
  Research Paper Summaries are required for both papers and are
  due before Thursday March 27 at noon.
  Note: Submitted file names should be yourname-11-1.pdf and yourname-11-2.pdf.
  1. Predictable 802.11 Packet Delivery from Wireless Channel Measurements,
     D. Halperin, W. Hu, A. Sheth and D. Wetherall,
     SIGCOMM, 2010.
  2. Rate Adaptation for 802.11 Multiuser MIMO Networks,
     Wei-Liang Shen, Yu-Chih Tung, Kuang-Che Lee, Kate Ching-Ju Lin, Shyamnath Gollakota, Dina Katabi and Ming-Syan Chen,
     MobiCom, 2012.
  
  
• Week 12: Projects due before class. Wrap up discussion.
  Friday Apr 4, 2014 (Wrap up review/homework due Thursday Apr 3 at noon)
  1. Wrap up review/homework
     Use filename = yourname-12-1.pdf and Subject: 856 Summaries
     
  2. Projects due BEFORE 10:00 am Fri Apr 4, 2014.
     Late projects will not be accepted!!! (Even a few minutes late).
     Use file naming system and as explained in the information about the project.
     You will be assigned a project identifier.
  
  
• Week 13: Program Committee Meeting
  Friday Apr 11, 2014 (Paper/Project Reviews are due Wed Apr 9 at 10 am)
  • Information about Review Submissions (READ THIS FIRST)