Understanding LANs, WLANs, And Network Topologies Is Essential For Networking And Wi-Fi Essay. (70 Characters)

NQ-Real Estate has 8 workstations in a wired LAN with a 100 Mbps switch. It was suggested to the admin officer to replace the switch with a wireless Access Point (AP) that uses the 802.11ac standard and operates at 1 Gbps. Assuming all workstations were simultaneously using the LAN, would the AP deliver faster or slower speeds to the users? Explain your reasoning by including estimates of effective bandwidth for each case.

Describe the difference between a network’s physical topology and its logical topology and explain the advantages and disadvantages of a physical star topology.

NQ-Real Estate’s facilities in Hermit Park, Townsville, are two office buildings 150 meters apart, each with its own LAN. To connect the two networks, the budget-conscious facilities manager suggests using Category 6 of Unshielded Twisted-Pair Cable.

• Explain why this is not a suitable advice
• Give two other media connectivity options, outline their advantages and disadvantages

Complete the following table by nominating the network layer names and the protocols associated with the following tasks:

• Ensure that the information sent by the web server reaches your browser
• Route messages between your PC and the server over the Internet
• Allow the web browser software and the web server software to understand the messages sent between them
• Encapsulate data in frames

Explain how it is that IPv4 and IPv6 can co-exist (dual-stack IP implementation) in the same network and describe two technologies that enable this.

It is well known that, the wireless signal of a Wi-Fi network is not confined to a cable as in a traditional network but instead is broadcast through the air. Recently, public Wi-Fi hotspots can be found everywhere, such as airports, hotels and coffee shops. Users can log onto the Internet with their mobile device. Along with convenience, public Wi-Fi hotspots can also provide an easy way for some attackers, like identity thieves and cybercriminals, to attack the wireless network or the users.

What is the difference between a switch and Wireless Access Point?

Assignment Question:

NQ-Real Estate has 8 workstations in a wired LAN with a 100 Mbps switch. It was suggested to the admin officer to replace the switch with a wireless Access Point (AP) that uses the 802.11ac standard and operates at 1 Gbps. Assuming all workstations were simultaneously using the LAN, would the AP deliver faster or slower speeds to the users? Explain your reasoning by including estimates of effective bandwidth for each case.

Your answer:

AP will deliver slower speeds since it utilises RF which is not shielded form external signals whereas cable are insulated with a sheath. Autonomously operating radios in the same area yet utilising the similar or the same RF could interfere with each other lowering the speed.  

Your question:

What is the difference between a switch and Wireless Access Point?

Your sample answer:

Network switch: This is a  computing network device that links computer network devices together by utilizing packet switching to process, forward and receive information to the targeted device. Wireless Access Point WAP or AP are device that enables computing WI-FI devices to link to a wire network.

Assignment Question:

Describe the difference between a network’s physical topology and its logical topology and explain the advantages and disadvantages of a physical star topology.

Your answer:

Network’s physical topology alludes to the interconnected configuration of a LAN (local area network).

Advantages

1. Cheap to implement
2. Easy to implement, handle and set up
3. Functions best for small networks  

Disadvantages

1. Challenging to isolate errors on the network nodes
2. Not suitable for networks with high traffic as it increases load thus reducing network efficiency.
3. Insecure since each device sees all data being transmitted

While logical topology involves structuring of the devices on a computer network and the way they communicate with each other. In other words they define the way the signal behaves on the network.

Advantages

Able to identify faults in the network since it determine how nodes communicate

Needs expertise to implement

Secure since not every device sees information transmitted

Disadvantages

Costly to implement

Hard to setup, implement and handle

Your question:

What is network topology?

Your sample answer:

This is the structuring of elements such as nodes, links in a communication network.

Assignment Question:

NQ-Real Estate’s facilities in Hermit Park, Townsville, are two office buildings 150 meters apart, each with its own LAN. To connect the two networks, the budget-conscious facilities manager suggests using Category 6 of Unshielded Twisted-Pair Cable.

• Explain why this is not a suitable advice
• Give two other media connectivity options, outline their advantages and disadvantages

Your answer:

Category 6 of Unshielded Twisted-Pair Cable is not suitable since they have a capability to run up to a 100 meters long.

The other two options

1. Fibre optic cable

Advantages

They have a much bigger bandwidth

Has a less electromagnetic interference

They are cheap

Disadvantages

Fibre optic cables are highly susceptible

High cost of installation

Fibre optic cables cannot be curved since it can lead to loss of transmission being broken

1. Coaxial cable

Advantages

Support multiple channels since it has sufficient frequency range.

Low rate of errors

Disadvantages

It has a thicker cable so more expensive to install

Much expensive to install

Your question:

What are the technologies used in networking connections?

Your sample answer:

There are three major technologies used in networking.

Patching cables – these comprises Ethernet cables

Electrical connections – comprises coaxial cables or twisted pairs   

Optical fibre cable -

What is network topology?

Assignment Question:

Complete the following table by nominating the network layer names and the protocols associated with the following tasks:

• Ensure that the information sent by the web server reaches your browser
• Route messages between your PC and the server over the Internet
• Allow the web browser software and the web server software to understand the messages sent between them
• Encapsulate data in frames

Your answer:

Complete this table:

Task	Layer	Protocol
Ensure that the information sent by the web server reaches your browser	Transport layer	TCP protocol
Route messages between your PC and the server over the Internet	Network layer	ICMP Protocol
Allow the web browser software and the web server software to understand the messages sent between them	Application layer	FTP Protocal
Encapsulate data in frames	Data link layer	Point-to-Point protocol

Your question:

What is the importance of IOS model?

Your sample answer:

The IOS model characterises networking systems for executing protocols in accordance with the seven layers. Every layer is functional autonomous with others but receive services from the layer below it and offers services to the layer above it.

Assignment Question:

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), is the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. As of 31 December 2017, the percentage of users reaching Google services with IPv6 reached 22.6% for the first time in regular measurements, growing at about 5.8% per year, although varying widely by region. As of December 2017, about 33% of Alexa Top 500 web servers support IPv6.

Explain how it is that IPv4 and IPv6 can co-exist (dual-stack IP implementation) in the same network and describe two technologies that enable this.

Your answer:

In dual stack- IP implementation router, computers, switches and other devices execute both protocols but IPV6 is the ideal protocol. This coexistence is enable by two technologies NAT-PT (Network Address Translation-Protocol Translation) and IPv4 NAT.

Your question:

What is the difference between IPV6 and IPv4 addresses

Your sample answer:

IPv4 is contains binary numbers that can be stored as text readable by humans and such as 192.168.4.34 while IPv6 comprises 128-bit IP address separated by colours and written in Hex 2J3J:JWE5:DF4E:4MSE:54NM:645F:4536:64AA

Assignment Question:

A switching table below has the following entries:

MAC Address	Port #
00-25-2A-00-00-01	4
00-25-2A-00-10-FC	1
00-25-2A-00-00-2B	2
00-25-2A-00-11-21	3
00-25-2A-00-10-0F	3

Port 3 is connected to a hub.

The following events occur:

• The entry for 00-25-2A-00-00-01 expires.
• An additional device (00-25-2A-00-10-5D) is connected to the hub on port 3.  
• A new virtualised machine (00-25-2A-00-10-6C) is started on the server connected to port 2.
• Device (00-25-2A-00-10-0F) is disconnected from the hub on port 3 and connected to port 5.  

Draw the switching table at the end of these events.  The order of entries is unimportant:

Your answer:

Complete the following table:

MAC Address	Port #
00-25-2A-00-00-2B	2
00-25-2A-00-00-01	4
00-25-2A-00-10-FC	1
00-25-2A-00-10-0F	3
00-25-2A-00-10-0F	3

Your answer:

Your question:

What is a MAC address

Your sample answer:

This is a unique identifier assigned to a network device

Assignment Question:

It is well known that, the wireless signal of a Wi-Fi network is not confined to a cable as in a traditional network but instead is broadcast through the air. Recently, public Wi-Fi hotspots can be found everywhere, such as airports, hotels and coffee shops. Users can log onto the Internet with their mobile device. Along with convenience, public Wi-Fi hotspots can also provide an easy way for some attackers, like identity thieves and cybercriminals, to attack the wireless network or the users.

Please state two kinds of attacks that may occur in public Wi-Fi networks and provide an effective way for users to address the security issues when they access public Wi-Fi on their computer or mobile device.

Your answer:

Types of the attack

Man-in-the-middle attacks

Packet sniffers

Measures to take to address WI-FI networks

Use of VPNs

Use of firewalls

Avoid accessing sensitive information

Only access HTTPS websites

Turn off sharing  

Your question:

Why are public WI-FI prone to attacks?

Your sample answer:

Public WI-FI are prone to attacks because of the many users hence easy to have the access by attackers.

Assignment Question:

Cloud computing is an information technology (IT) paradigm that enables ubiquitous access to shared pools of configurable system resources and higher-level services that can be rapidly provisioned with minimal management effort, often over the Internet. Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale, similar to a public utility.

Cloud-computing providers offer their "services" according to different models. Explain the three basic service models including one example for each.

Your answer:

• IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service) – with this model one can rent IT infrastructure such as virtual machines, storage, operating systems, networks and servers from a cloud provider on the basis of pay as you go. Such asCisco Metapod  
• PaaS (Platform as a service) – this alludes to cloud computing services that offer an on demand condition for testing delivering, developing and managing softwares. PaaS is intended to make it easier for developers of mobile apps or create web without being concerned about managing or setting up underlying infrastructure of storage, network, database and servers required for development. For instance Google App Engine
• SaaS (Software as a service) – it is a technique for delivering software over the internet on demand and normally on subscription. For example Windows Azure