1. Open standards refers to a format or protocol subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties. A standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it. Advantages to use open standard: free to use (greatest advantage) distribute and modify. Lower cost and in most cases this is only a fraction of the cast of their proprietary counterparts. More secured as the code is accessible to everyone. No complex licensing models and don’t need anti-piracy measures like product activation or serial number. 2. A layered architecture is beneficial because other applications will be able to reuse the functionally exposed by layers. Be able to distribute layers over multiple physical tiers, good impact on applications- improving performance (sometimes) scalability and fault tolerance; low coupling between layers; more testable. 3. A protocol is an agreed upon format for transmitting data between two devices. It is used so that the computer or device must support the right ones if it wants to communicate with other computers or devices. An example of a technological protocol is the internet – an example of a social protocol is the warn function in the online chat application, AOL Instant Messenger. 4. Four different types of networks: *Private networks (networks that belongs to a single organization) *LAN (Local Area Network) linking groups of computers together within a small area using Ethernet *MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) connects multiple nearby LAN to each other at high speeds *WAN (Wide Area Network) connects multiple LANs to each other over great distances using routers. 5. OSI and TCP / IP models are similar in the way of packets of information traveling over one or more networks through a common protocol or a set of rules for transmitting and receiving packets