Lab 2

Exercise 2.1.1

If one of the five (Media, Interface, Signal, Pattern, and Timing) is missing you will not get a connection. You will not be able to share information. If Media is missing there is no way to transmit the signal. If the Interface is missing there is no way for the computer to access the media to get the connection. If the signal is missing you cannot transmit to get the connection. If the pattern is missing the device cannot communicate with any other device on the network. If the timing is missing the device’s communication would crash into other devices’ communication causing a roadblock in the system.

Exercise 2.1.2
The Network interface card (NIC) allows this kind of integration.

Exercise 2.1 review
Network devices are routers, gateways, hubs, and switches. Peripheral devices are printers, mice, monitor, and scanners.
You would limit incoming connections to keep spam out and viruses or malware out.

Peer to peer network is good for small groups and businesses. They can share resources and data between nodes. They scale better and are more resilient because they do not rely exclusive on servers.

Exercise 2.2.1 The startup cost for individual computers is $3600 versus a high-capacity printer for $500. The drawback to having only one printer for 30 users is backup (traffic jam) of pages to print as well as wearing it out causing repair costs. Setting priorities on what printed first. The cost for three printers –two backup printers is $1500 versus $3600. You could have up to seven printers which would cost $3500 divided these between the 20 users. This would be 4-5 users per printer.

Exercise 2.2.2 You would need 4 printers at least to prevent overload on the printers’ capacity. Yes, by having 4 or more you cut down on wear and tear of the unit reducing down time and repair costs. Having 4 printers means you have about 7 users per printer thus printing 154 pages per hour based on figures given.

Exercise 2.2.4

Security is the biggest drawback. I would be worried about a Hacker being able to access all the data on the drive.

Exercise 2.2.6

I only shortcut information I use regularly. So I would be checking my daily. If the items were taken offline or moved there would be no connection and you would get an error message that it could not find it.

Exercise 2.2 review 1. It is infeasible because you would clutter up your desktop making it harder to find the shortcut. A better alternative is to book mark the most frequently used websites. T 2. You would only have to create multiple mounted drives for different folders if these folders were going to contain large amounts of data. It is neither good or bad it depends on the size of data being used and stored. 3. The sharing of resources in a network helps a business’s users communicate and working together on projects easier.

Lab 2.3.1

LAN-local area network- a network inside a small area such as small business, library, home
WAN – Wide area network-covers a broader area such as a city
PAN-Personal area network used for data transmission between devices
MAN-metropolitan area network this is a network that connects users in a region or geographic location.

Lab 2.3.2
Network Topology is the physical or logical structure of the network- a diagram that shows all connects to nodes and servers and gateways or routers going out onto the Internet.

Lab 2.3.3

The number to send a message from A to B is one. The number from B to A is three. To add a new node ( E ) you just need one cable and connectors. It would affect the ring because messages would have to go through one additional node making it longer to get messages sent.

Lab 2.3.4

It would take three messages for get from A to D and the same for D to A. On link would be needed to add node E to the topology. It would add one more to it meaning it would have an additional node to give messages to.

Lab 2.3.5

If it was a hub for the star topology than three messages would be sent. If it was a switch than only one message would be sent. The effect of adding a new node between C and D on the network would depend on whether it was on a hub or a switch, if a switch than no effect however if it was a hub than an additional message would be sent out with an additional receiver of that message.

Lab 2.3.6

Four messages are sent from A to D. The same with sending a messages from A to B four messages are sent due to the redundancy . You would need two additional links when adding node E between nodes C and D. If you added node F than you need three additional links.

Lab 2.3 review

The devices that you can connect to a PAN are telephones, gaming systems (consoles), laptops, desktops (PC), and if used in a home you could have your television hooked up to this for online streaming of movies.

The ring and bus topologies have a single point of failure due to the fact that any data or message sent has to go through all nodes connected to those topologies. So if one node went down it would disrupt the signal and stop the signal at the down node not going any further in topology.

The limiting factors for growing a mesh topology are cost as well as maintenance. In a star topology everything is dependent on the central device. It has to be able to handle additional nodes. If it goes down the whole system would go down. If using a switch than you would need an extra slot for the new node(s). So the cost would go up to add another switch if there was no room on the switch already in use.

A MAN is a metropolitan area network. This would be useful for large Universities such as Ohio State or cities such as New York. A MAN is smaller than a WAN therefore it would be more useful for the above examples.