ELSAYED, Y. Analyzing Core Concepts of Communication Technologies in Traditional and SDN Networks [online]. Brno: Vysoké učení technické v Brně. Fakulta elektrotechniky a komunikačních technologií. 2025.
The main scope of this thesis was the study and detailed understanding of key networking principles, technologies, and protocols, including packet switching techniques, routing, software-defined networking, DNS, ACLs, and others. Based on this theoretical foundation, the student was tasked with preparing three laboratory tutorials intended for use in the Communication Technology course. From this perspective, the thesis goals were fully achieved. The student worked independently while regularly consulting on the progress during scheduled meetings. The overall quality of the submitted bachelor’s thesis is very solid. The created tutorials provide detailed, step-by-step guides to help students navigate the covered topics. Each lab tutorial begins with a brief theoretical summary, followed by detailed instructions, and concludes with several review questions for students to answer. The submitted thesis comprises 129 pages and seven main chapters that discuss the theory and summarize the developed tutorials. The actual tutorials are included as individual appendices at the end of the thesis. Stylistically, the thesis meets the academic standards expected at this level, with only a small number of formal issues, inconsistencies, or minor grammatical errors. The student also demonstrated good use of existing literature and references. Final Grade: 90 points (A)
The theoretical part describes the fundamental concepts of data transmission in IP networks. Some basic information, such as the description of the OSI and TCP/IP models, routers, and switches, is unnecessary in the theoretical overview of such specific work. Instead, it would have been more appropriate to provide a more detailed description of software-defined networking (SDN), which is the topic of the bachelor's thesis. Only one and a half pages are devoted to this topic, and the description is superficial, lacking sufficient technical depth. The literature is not cited in the required format, and some references are missing mandatory details. This applies to both the sources cited in the main text and those referenced in the laboratory exercises. The quality of some figures (e.g., A.9) is poor. The created laboratory exercises no. 1 and 2 present basic network configurations. These exercises demonstrate standard setups. However, I expected the student’s main contribution to be in laboratory exercise no. 3, according to the thesis assignment. Here, the advantages of using an SDN controller for software-defined networks should have been demonstrated. The student did not illustrate these core benefits (e.g., flow rules, routing policies, security policies). Instead, the laboratory exercise focuses only on secondary and simplistic uses of the SDN controller, such as communication visualization or time configuration via NTP. Additionally, laboratory exercise no. 3 does not sufficiently build upon the configurations from the previous laboratory exercises to clearly showcase the advantages of the SDN controller.
eVSKP id 169685