This project will integrate the teaching of telephony, data, and optical communication for undergraduates. The graphical object-oriented software CANeT will be used to facilitate an intuitive and experimental understanding of difficult networking concepts and analysis. The experiments will be performed on nine SUN IPX workstations served by a SUN SPARC II GX workstation. The workstations will be networked by an ethernet network and an optical FDDI network. The ethernet network will provide basic low-speed communication among the workstations, while the FDDI network will serve to demonstrate traffic measurements and high-speed networks for transporting graphics, data, and video. The network, besides being the Tool for experimentation, also is the Object of experimentation. Students will acquire hands-on experience on a real network by implementing and testing elementary network protocols using UNIX sockets. Special projects following the course will train students to handle real network problems.The course emphasizes the skill of analyzing a complex system into its components, solving the component problems, and then synthesizing the component solutions to meet system objectives. Engineering iterates is a key feature of the CANeT tool for meeting system objectives. System modeling is also emphasized, whereas sophisticated mathematical analysis is facilitated by CANeT. Programming exercises allow students to learn communication protocol by experimentation, rather than by deciphering acronyms of standards.This project will establish a modern network laboratory, with numerous exercises and projects, and plans for disseminating the laboratory software are incorporated. An undergraduate textbook based on a new framework rather than the usual OSI 7 layer framework will be completed.
