Networks and Systems Management

Code:

M.EIC017

Acronym:

GRS

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Computer Architecture, Operating Systems and Networks

Instance: 2024/2025 - 2S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Course/CS Responsible:	Master in Informatics and Computing Engineering

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
M.EIC	17	Syllabus	1	-	6	39	162

Teaching language

English

Objectives

The commoditization of computer networks and services and the increase of their size and complexity even in small to medium sized organizations, and the need for quickly adapting to changes in the organization, to new software versions, to failures, and to attacks makes it impractical to manually manage and operate these networks and brings network management and operation closer to the devops model used in the development of software for the cloud under the logic of programmable infrastructure. The goal of this curricular unit is to familiarize the student with 1) the fundamental concepts of network, service, and system management and operations in a small to medium-sized organization, as well as with 2) the techniques for programming automated management and operations of these networks, services, and systems.

Learning outcomes and competences

After completing this curricular unit, the student should:
1) be able to explain and discuss network management, control, and operation mechanisms including network resource allocation and monitoring;
2) understand the fundamental concepts of network, service, and system operations of a small to medium-sized organization
3) be able to apply programming techniques to automate the network, service, and system management and operations;
4) be able to explain and discuss the fundamental concepts of network function virtualization (NFV) and software defined networking (SDN).

Working method

Presencial

Pre-requirements (prior knowledge) and co-requirements (common knowledge)

Programming, computer networking, communication protocols.

Program

1. Fundamentals of network management and control including monitoring, FCAPS, quality of service and experience, network capacity planning, and traffic engineering.
2. Fundamentals of enterprise networks, including addressing, access control, internal and external routing, domain name resolution, proxies, load balancing, and service virtualization.
3. Topics in programming and automation of network management and operation (netdevops), including network device configuration via API, extracting information from network devices, using templates, source code repositories, continuous integration, and device key management.
4. Topics in network softwarization focusing on software defined networks (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV); SDN devices, protocols, and applications; NFV concepts, architecture, virtual services, and service chaining; relation between SDN, NFV, and netdevops.

Mandatory literature

D.E. Comer; Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume One, 6th Edition, Pearson, 2014. ISBN: 9780133449754
J. Edelman, S. Lowe, and M. Oswalt; Network Programmability and Automation: Skills for the Next-Generation Network Engineer, O’Reilly, 2018. ISBN: 978-1491931257

Complementary Bibliography

D. Verma; Principles of Computer Systems and Network Management, Springer, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-387-89009-8
W. Stallings; Foundations of Modern Networking: SDN, NFV, QoE, IoT, and Cloud, Pearson Education, 2016. ISBN: 978-0134175393
S. Armstrong; DevOps for Networking, Packt Publishing, 2016. ISBN: 9781786464859
A. Ratan; Practical Network Automation: Leverage the power of Python and Ansible to optimize your network, Packt Publishing, 2017. ISBN: 9781788299466

Teaching methods and learning activities

1) Exploration of the fundamental concepts in network, service, and system management through a) lectures, b) autonomous search for scientific papers, use case reports, and other information available online, c) flipped classroom technique with self-learning of previously identified content and with later discussion of these concepts in the classroom.
2) Practical assignments in the laboratory to explore programming techniques for management and operation of specific parts of the network and specific services.
3) Project whose goal is to characterise the efficiency of the programming techniques developed previously, with students choosing a failure, software update, attack, or any other technical reason that requires one to change the configuration of the network or services.

keywords

Technological sciences > Engineering > Systems engineering

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation with final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Teste	50,00
Trabalho prático ou de projeto	50,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Estudo autónomo	52,00
Frequência das aulas	39,00
Trabalho laboratorial	71,00
Total:	162,00

Eligibility for exams

Develop the project (lab work) and submit a report for it.

Calculation formula of final grade

CF = 0,5*T + 0,5*P; if ( T < 10,0 or P < 10,0 ) then CF =MIN(CF, 9.0)
T - test
P - project