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The Networks Skunkworks |
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A skunkworks is "A small, loosely structured corporate research and
development unit or subsidiary formed to foster innovation." [The American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language], often developing
breakthrough "high
technology". The original
skunkworks was the research lab of Lockheed Martin, which
developed such legendary aircraft as the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes and
the F-117 stealth "fighter", and was named after an illicit brewery
("Skonk Works") in the Lil
Abner cartoon series. The Networks Skunkworks is a team of
people researching how to improve communication networks, with
emphasis on wireless LANs, transport protocols, and improving network
dependability.
Current members:
| Academic staff: |
Tim Moors
Email: t.moors AT unsw.edu.au
Dependable communication networks
Transport protocol design
Wireless LANs: QOS and error characterisation
|
| PhD students: |
Jack Tsai
Email: j.tsai AT student.unsw.edu.au
Multipath routing in mesh networks
Aug. 2005-
|
| Masters students: |
Qing Shao
|
Xun Xu
|
| Undergraduate thesis students: |
Dennis Ong
|
JitLoon Ng
|
LiHong Lim
|
Rithvik Toopran
|
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Could this be you? |
Descriptions of thesis topics being offered |
The Networks Skunkworks works together with the MOBQOS group, Network Research Laboratory Vijay Sivaraman and Rob Malaney at UNSW.
Alumni
Postgraduates
Sameer Qazi: Scalable Resilient Overlay Networks, PhD awarded Oct. 2009
Guillaume Jourjon: Towards a Versatile Transport Protocol, PhD awarded Aug. 2008
John Risson: Reliable Key-Based Routing Topologies, PhD awarded Mar. 2008
Dennis Pong:
802.11 QOS (in particular EDCF),
Nov. 2002-Dec. 2005
MPhil: Bo Fan: Peer-to-peer sharing of network measurements
MEngSc project:
Undergraduates
2010:
- Anthong Fung: Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Monitoring and Troubleshooting
2009/10:
- Anurag Sharma: Duplicate Address Detection and Resolution
2009:
- Adam Brunero: Availability Modelling of Electrical Protection Schemes
2008/9:
- Rukshan Guruge and Sutharsan Sivapalan: Network testing and monitoring using embedded nano computers
2008
- Kejun Chock: Regression Testing for Routers in Core Network
2007/8:
- Gilbert Anggono: Measure and Anlalys Internet Path Properties
- Himawan Ho: Interference-aware Multipath Routing in Wireless Mesh Network
2007:
- Dan Iuliano: Ethernet Switch from a PC
- Kent Bernard and Vincent Tjong: Analyzing Email Headers to Detect Server Problems
- Mentari Djatmiko: Interference in Wireless Mesh Networks
2006/7:
- Felix Lehane: Dealing with Loops in Modern Communications Networks
- Adem Ozbakan and Dominic Tan: PERFORMANCE OF WIRELESS MESH NETWOKKS IN HOUSING ESTATES
- Asif Rajan and Hassaan Zahid: Open Source Network Management System
2006:
- Colin Tan: Transport Protocol Diversity
- Sonja Milanovic: Multipath routing on wireless mesh networks
- Wai Yeung (Robin) Chow: Network error explainer
2005/6:
2005:
Cindy Lo (2004-5)
David Ching (2004)
Chee Leong Tiew (2004)
Anthony Lang (2004)
Viseth Sal (2004)
Wei Zhang (2004)
Simon Leung (2004)
Peter Lo (2004)
Sam Ngai (2004)
Vincent Chen (2003)
Marvyn Mei (2003)
Agus Salim (2003)
Kelvin Siew (2003)
Jacky So (2003)
Ming Siang Lim (2002-3)
Robin Widoyo
Ruihui (Rene) Ma
Past projects
TM56: Analysing email headers to detect server problems
Since most e-mail users are not concerned with transmission details, e-mail client user interfaces tend to hide information that emails accumulate as they propagate from source to destination, including information about when they were received and forwarded by intermediate mail transfer agents. Analysis of such information (using text processing software to extract the relevant fields and basic statistics) can reveal server problems, e.g. which server(s) on the path caused a message to be delayed. This can be used for troubleshooting networks, and for choosing providers that do not cause such problems. Similarly, traffic analysis techniques can be applied to messages being received by a client to detect anomalies (e.g. nothing, not even spam, received for a period) that may indicate server problems. The goal of this thesis is to develop software to automatically perform such analyses.
TM34: Monitoring and measuring server availability
The goal of this thesis is to develop and test tools that can be used
to monitor and measure the availability of Internet services, such as
HTTP and SMTP services. The challenge will lie in creating a range of
tools that can accommodate a range of access to servers (from access
only to the service itself for a commercial service, through non-root
to root access to the server machines) and in ensuring accuracy of the
measurements while limiting the load incurred by the measurement
process. Existing approaches include repeatedly "ping"ing a server,
analysing "last" logs and "uptime" on Unix boxes, etc. The resulting
measurements will indicate the availability of Internet services and
guide research into enhancing the dependability of Internet services.
TM32: Instant Messaging and Presence protocols for notifying users about service availability
This is part of a broader project.
Network services (e.g. web services such as webCT, IP services, etc) are not always continuously available, and service providers often seek mechanisms to notify users about service availability, e.g. about planned outages, or about why service is currently unavailable and the estimated time of return of service. Structuring such notifications and sending them electronically allows user-end software to automatically filter out notifications that are not currently relevant to the user, and to retrieve previously irrelevant notifications to explain current network behaviour. In 2004, a thesis student developed a proprietary system for structuring and sending such notifications. However, to maximise the deployment of such a system, it is desirable that it be generalised to provide for notification of arbitrary services (e.g. a person being available/present, road traffic conditions being congested/free-flowing, etc) and to use standard protocols and structures for describing such events. Thus, the goal of this thesis in 2005 is to develop a system that uses Instant Messaging protocols (e.g. Jabber, or others supported by clients such as Gaim) to disseminate these notifications, and standard calendaring formats (e.g. RFC 3283/2445) for describing the time of the event so that it can be integrated with other events in calendaring software such as Outlook.
TM47: Instant Messaging (IM) client-side filtering
This is part of a broader project.
Many email clients (e.g. Outlook and web-based mail such as Gmail) allow users to filter incoming messages according to criteria such as source or key words. Such filtering would also be useful for similar reasons for Instant Messaging clients, but current IM clients (e.g. GAIM) do not support such filters. IM filtering is also of particular interest to a UNSW project (see topic TM32) that uses IM to send structured service availability notices, e.g. about network outages, since the user's interest in such notices (and hence prominence of display by an IM client) should reflect the relevance of the notice to the user (e.g. low for services that the user doesn't or isn't currently using). This thesis will involve extending the source code of a popular open-source IM client (e.g. GAIM) to provide such filtering.
TM45: Wireless mesh networks
Various projects are available in the area of routing for wireless mesh networks, as part of a NICTA project.
TM48: Negotiation of new transport protocols
The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the most popular transport
protocol today, and is used for applications such as email, web
browsing, and file sharing. It has withstood many tests of time since
first introduced in the 1970s, but several new transport protocols
have been proposed recently (notably SCTP and DCCP) to address some of
the limitations of TCP. Unfortunately, a large impediment to the
adoption of these technically superior protocols is the inertia behind
existing TCP installations: Clients can be confident that a server
supports TCP, but cannot readily determine which other transport
protocols the server may support, and so tend to use TCP. This
project will examine new ways of using TCP header fields to allow
clients and servers to ascertain each other's capabilities
(i.e. supported transport protocols) and choose a protocol that is
best suited to their mutual needs, while still maintaining backward
compatibility with traditional TCP implementations. It will involve
Linux kernel hacking (C) and extend your knowledge of TCP gained from
data networks courses and introduce you to more modern protocols that
are likely to take over from TCP/IP, if only there existed mechanisms
(as provided by this project) for end-systems to negotiate which
protocol to use.
TM44: Create an Ethernet switch from a PC
You will develop software so that a PC with multiple Ethernet
interfaces can act an Ethernet switch (which will be used as a highly
configurable switch in a lab). In doing so, you will learn in detail
about how switches work (e.g. their learning algorithms, packet
classification, and the Spanning Tree Protocol) and in writing network
software for Linux (even kernel-level programming if you want to
optimise performance). To make the switch transparent (not modify the
source MAC address of passing frames) you will need to be tricky,
e.g. use network interface cards with programmable addresses.
TM50: Build a Network Operations Centre (NOC)
from open-source and custom components
(Group thesis)
Network Operations Centers are used to manage (e.g. configure and
monitor) networks, as well as to solve issues (e.g. fault reports)
raised by users. The aim of this project is to build a NOC using
primarily open-source software, plus some custom components to fill
open-source voids. This project will give you insight into how
networks are operated, and so possibly enhance your employment
prospects. You should have done, or concurrently do, a network
management course (e.g. TELE4354). Some suggestions for suitable
open-source software includes www.opennms.org for network management,
Nagios and mrtg for monitoring, help desk and trouble ticket software.
An example of a custom component is a voice-mail-like system (built
using a voice modem), through which users can make fault reports when
the network is not working in digital (e.g. touch tone) and analog
(e.g. voice) forms.
Send questions about the Networks Skunkworks to t.moors AT unsw.edu.au
Skunk photos from North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and drawing from http://www.linsdomain.com/totems/pages/skunk.htm
