• An open source lab project – Givesstudents and instructors hands-on experience by dealing directly with the routing protocols that ISPs use.

– For universities on tight budgets, open source projects are cost-free. 

• Practical optimization methods using a graduated approach – Uses programming exercises that incrementally build the elements of a small-scale network design capability.

• Valuable hands-on laboratory exercises:

– Uses a free open-source utility, quagga (www.quagga.net) that implements all the typical routing protocols that Internet Service Providers use. Several commercial ISPs are using this software in Linux routers.

– Enhances students’ abilities to obtain jobs and grounds them in the principles of routing protocols.

• Comparison of formal optimization with heuristics.

• Second order statistics made accessible to senior undergrads – Gives students an excellent background on the most important methods to deal with traffic characterization.

• Approximately 20 multiple choice, five pencil & paper exercises, five hands-on programming projects, and a case study for each chapter. 

• Powerpoints produced by the authors.