Network Architecture Assignment Exploring Common Architecture Design Questions

Question

Assessment Resource
1. Give two examples of functions that are typically provided by the access layer in a hierarchical network desig

2. Give two examples of functions that would typically be provided by a core layer in a hierarchical network design

3. What are two differences between SMF (single mode fibre) and MMF (multimode fibre) optical cables?

4. What is the function of a GBIC/SFP in an optical fibre network

5. What is meant by a ‘cell’ in mobile cellular networks?

6. List two components of a base station in a mobile cellular network

7. List two factors that influence the range that can be achieved by an RFID system

8. Give an example of an RFID application that would use (i) low frequency; (ii) intermediate frequency; (iii) high frequency

9. Give an example of an operational business process that a university would need to implement

10. Give an example of a notation that can be used to model a business process.

11. What is the name of the feature in Windows 10 that usually allows me to successfully run programs that were written for an earlier version of Windows (e.g Windows XP)?

12. How do I determine of a hardware or software element is compatible with Windows Server 2012?

13. Give two examples (numbers and titles) of two different RFCs for TCP/IP related protocols

14. Give two examples of well known ports in the TCP/IP protocol suite

15. Go to this link or (https://www.whistleout.com.au/MobilePhones/Guides/Will-my-phone-workin-Australia-carrier-network-frequencies#section-networks) and review the frequencies over which different networks operate. Answer the following question: I have a phone that can operate at 2100MHz only. Can I access the Vodafone 4G network? Why/why not?

16. Briefly define what is meant by: (i) encryption of data at rest (ii) encryption of data in transit

17. Classify the following as either (I) a desktop operating system or (ii) a desktop application

• Windows 10
• Mac OS X
• Apple Safari
• Microsoft Edge
• Microsoft Excel

18. What is the purpose of configuring a default gateway on an IP-connected host? What happens if I do not configure a default gateway for a host?

19. What is the difference between dynamic assignment of addresses compared to static assignment of addresses in an IP network?

20. What is one advantage of asymmetric keys (e.g. public/private key pairs) over symmetric keys (i.e. shared secrets) in encryption applications? What is the name of the security-related standard that specifies the format of public key certificates used in protocols such as HTTPS?

21. Define what is meant by a network topology, and give two examples of network topologies.

Answer

A.1 Access layer functions in Hierarchical structure design

1. Shared bandwidth : This Network Architecture Assignment outlines several users that are involved in sharing a common bandwidth. It is commonly referred as shared plan in which each user is involved in getting access to bandwidth. Devices and users get a share of overall bandwidth allocated to them. The speed of download/upload will be high for less number of users whereas speed will be high for low number of users.

2. MAC layer filtering: It works by creating an authentication procedure by SSID login and password by which users are login to the users account. By doing this access are getting accesses into IP addresses in which shared resources are allocated.

3. Micro-segmentation : The collision domain is just segmented into various segments. It is done in-order to make sure the security and efficiency works in better way.

A. 2 Examples of two different functions in core layer network design

Core layer:
Aggregation: Combining multiple networks parallel. The aim is to provide increased throughput when the bandwidth are not fully utilized. The concept of redundancy makes sure that it provides enhanced service availability from combined service.

This can be done by adopting concept of redundancy. Multiple network connections are essential for making sure that a common connection provides users enhanced service availability.

Authentication: Equipment within core networks, checks to ensure user requesting service is authenticated. The user's request for services must be verified against suitable authentication process (Yan et al. 2016).

A. 3 Two differences between SMF and MMF
In single mode fiber (SMF) there is comparatively greater transmission rates. The Multi-transmission mode (MMF) is less expensive than SMF. There are differences between single mode fibers and multi-mode fibers. The basis differences are its attenuation, associated loss.

There are three core parts they are core, cladding and coating.
Single-mode fiber consists of 62.5 µm and SMF has 9 µm core diameters.
MMF provides high relatively high bandwidth at high rates.

Q. 4 Functions of GBIC
Electro-optical communication network are easily upgraded and configured.

The GBIC transceiver is a module that helps hot-swapping of the system.
It is compliant with ANSI specification.
It is compliant with ANSI specification.

Small-form factor is more compact, it is a hot-pluggable device that is used in both telecommunication and data-communication.

Both applications are used in fiber channel applications and Gigabit Ethernet (Ersue et al. 2015).

A.5 Cell in Mobile cellular networks
The cellular network belongs to communication networks where the last link is termed as wireless. There is distribution of network in land areas are named as cells. Each of the cells are served by one location-fixed transceiver. Base stations provide the service for network coverage which is utilized for Vo-IP, data and others (Pentikousis et al. 2016).

A cell is referred to as component of cellular network which has a frequency assigned for its purpose. When joined/assembled together then there is a wide coverage over a wide geographic area.

A. 6 Two components of base station in cellular networksBase station coverage:This is referred to the area of coverage that base station is undertaking. It depends upon several factors out of which one is the line-of-sight and others rely upon ionosphere reflection of radio-waves.

Base station capacity: Base stations have the capacity to manage 168 calls simultaneously. Once capacity is reached then base station drops requests within users range. Once a base station cannot manage requests then it hands over requests to other base stations (Kutscher et al. 2016).

The wider the channel bandwidth, wider is the pipe which is measure of channel bandwidth.

A. 7 Two factors affecting the range by RFID system
Antenna gain:Antenna with a higher gain increases the amount of power that is received from receiver.
Proximity scan is essential tool for scanning the tags of reader.
Higher gain indicates higher range of coverage.

Antenna polarization: The types of electromagnetic field that antenna is generating is also required to be determined.

Linear polarization acts along a plane whereas the circularly polarized RFID antenna. There is splitting of power in more than one axis in circularly polarized antenna (Xylomenos et al. 2014).

A. 8 Application of different ranges of RFID
Low frequency: Long-range frequency is able to penetrate thin metallic substances that will help penetration of thin metallic substances. They are adopted in animal tagging and access controlling.

High frequency: When quality of water content is present then moderate RFID frequency of the system is chosen to operate under this condition. Similar to Low-frequency range there is higher penetration of metallic substances (Shang et al. 2016).

Ultra-high frequency: There is much better read range in this field. This frequency range requires higher energy compared to Low-RFID and Medium-RFID. This frequency range is likely to be attenuated in water and thin-metallic plates.

Q. 9 Operational business processes that a university will need to implement.
1. Administration: The first step includes provision for on boarding of employees and provide them essential tools for identity, equipments etc.

2. Information technology: It is required to maintain every record of administrations, student’s scores, assignments etc (Ersue et al. 2015).

3. Library: The library should contain the books according to their curriculum.

4. Infrastructure: The infrastructure involves creation of seminar halls, exam halls and classes. There should be focus upon library, playgrounds and other requirements.

5. Classes and departments: There should be division of departments and each department should have one head.

A. 10 Notational examples used for modeling of business processes
It is commonly referred as Business process Model and Notation (BPMN). It is a standard for business process modeling that involves in graphical notations that specifies business processing.

Fig 1: Flow objects and connecting objects
(Source: Hu & Kelsey, 2016)

The notations shown here in the example shows how events, activity, gateways and connections are oriented. Start and ending event is shown by a circular box whereas rectangular box represents the activities. Connections are shown by dark and dotted lines and associations are established using dotted line (undirected).

A. 11 Name of the windows feature that enables running of programs in old windows to new windows
Compatibility troubleshooter makes older windows program run in new operating system.

Compatibility mode allows users to change the operating environment to suitable operating system. It allows the system to operate under red color mode. Screen resolution can also be changed along with DPI settings (Oh, Ozkaya & LaRose, 2014).

Microsoft platform ready test tool is also representative of compatibility tester for windows-server-2012.

A. 12 How to determine if the hardware and software is compatible with windows server 2012.The hardware and software required for windows server 2012 can be determined by software-utility tools like windows server compatibility checker (Rapaport et al. 2014).

A. 13 Two different examples of RFC for TCP/IP related protocols
1. RFC 792: Commonly referred as ICMP protocol, it used in those cases when datagram are unable to each destination but can be buffered into some gateways. The gateway has the control to direct the traffic to shorter route. The Network Architecture Assignment outlines Motto for development of this protocol is to provide feedback for the problems within communication environments (Quinn, Elzur & Pignataro, 2018).

2. RFC 6405: It is commonly termed as Voice-over IP in which the use cases are there for session initiation protocol. The use cases are categorized into static and on-demand which can further be divided into direct and indirect use cases. This protocol ensures reliable real-time data transmission. The data need not be very accurate but there are time-bound-criteria which have to be satisfied.

A. 14 Two examples of TCP/IP protocol suits in ports
Telnet: It operates in port no. 23. Telnet is processed in client-server machine to facilitate remote login procedure.

SMTP: Port no. 25. SMTP also causes the port no. 25 to operate. It facilitates usage of various protocols like POP, ICMP for email retrieval.

A. 15 Can Vodafone 4G network operates under 2100 MHz.
No, Vodafone 4G network cannot operate under 4G networks but it can operate under it only if it’s 3G network.

A. 16 briefly explain the concept of encryption of data at rest and encryption of data in transit
Data at rest refers to the data that is stored in database like hard-drives.
This type of data in particular is inactive.
The data is stored in disks, pen drives and other related devices currently not operating.
The data in rest do not require actively engaging energy

The data in rest do not require actively engaging energy

A. 17 Desktop operating system and desktop applications
1. Windows 10- It is desktop operating system

2. Mac OS X- Desktop operating system

3. Apple safari- Operating system

4. Microsoft Edge- Web browser

5. Microsoft Excel - Windows application (Kizza, 2017).

A. 18 Configuring default gateways on IP-connected hosts
Gateway acts like an access point that helps connecting another network. Each network represents a gateway which communicates to external environment. Router forwards packets from one node to another node. Default term refers to usage of this server in case another gateway is not authorized to control subnet (Gon & Chown, 2016).

Network administrators operate the network by assigning the gateway as the representative of subnet. The IP address range starting point is address of default gateway itself.

A. 19 Static assignment and dynamic assignment of IP address
The static assignment of IP address refers to allocating I address permanently to a node. Whereas dynamic addressing refers to allocating/changing IP address under specific circumstances. Static IP addresses are allocated to specific devices during manufacturing whereas dynamic address is developed from DHCP servers (Kizza, 2017).

A. 20 Advantage of symmetric keys over asymmetric keys
Symmetric keys on this Network Architecture Assignment are less complex than asymmetric ones because there is concept of shared keys which is more secure since it requires transmission of both keys to some extent.

Symmetric key is faster. It also uses password and authentication to prove identity of user.

There is shared secret key whereas asymmetric key cryptography is likely to be decided during interception (Baccelli et al. 2014).

A. 21 Network topologies refer to the various connecting styles of nodes of a subnet. It comprises of interconnected nodes based on some pattern.
1. Star: It consists of one single master node connecting all other nodes. The main node failure leads to breakdown of whole subnet

2. Mesh: It consists of connecting each node to every other node. Each node of the link is connected to every other node.

3. Barrel shifter: Barrel shifter is topology similar to Ring but also consists of nodes connected to each other.

4. Bus: The Bus topology refers to a single common backbone bus connected to every other node

5. Ring/FDDI: Ring topology refers to connection of each and every node to another adjacent node. FDDI refers to connection of nodes in a ring structure in both anticlockwise-clockwise directions (Buddhikot, Kolodzy & Miller, 2015).

References
Baccelli, E., Mehlis, C., Hahm, O., Schmidt, T. C., & Wählisch, M. (2014, September). Information centric networking in the IoT: experiments with NDN in the wild. In Proceedings of the 1st ACM Conference on Information-Centric Networking (pp. 77-86). ACM.

Buddhikot, M. M., Kolodzy, P., & Miller, S. C. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,161,231. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Clemm, A., Medved, J., Varga, R., Bahadur, N., Ananthakrishnan, H., & Liu, X. (2018). A YANG Data Model for Network Topologies (No. RFC 8345).

Ersue, M., Romascanu, D., Schoenwaelder, J., & Sehgal, A. (2015). Management of networks with constrained devices: Use cases (No. RFC 7548).

Gont, F., & Chown, T. (2016). Network Reconnaissance in IPv6 Networks (No. RFC 7707).

Hui, J., & Kelsey, R. (2016). Multicast protocol for low-power and lossy networks (MPL). Kizza, J. M. (2017). Guide to computer network security. Springer.

Kutscher, D., Eum, S., Pentikousis, K., Psaras, I., Corujo, D., Saucez, D., ... & Waehlisch, M. (2016). Information-centric networking (ICN) research challenges (No. RFC 7927).

Oh, H. J., Ozkaya, E., & LaRose, R. (2014). How does online social networking enhance life satisfaction? The relationships among online supportive interaction, affect, perceived social support, sense of community, and life satisfaction. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, 69-78.

Pentikousis, K., Ohlman, B., Davies, E., Spirou, S., & Boggia, G. (2016). Information-Centric Networking: Evaluation and Security Considerations (No. RFC 7945).

Quinn, P., Elzur, U., & Pignataro, C. (2018). Network Service Header (NSH) (No. RFC 8300).

Rapaport, J. A., Rapaport, S., Smith, K. A., Beattie, J., & Gimlan, G. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,676,937. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Shang, W., Yu, Y., Droms, R., & Zhang, L. (2016). Challenges in IoT networking via TCP/IP architecture. Technical Report NDN-0038. NDN Project.

Wang, M., Carver, J. J., Phelan, V. V., Sanchez, L. M., Garg, N., Peng, Y., ... & Porto, C. (2016). Sharing and community curation of mass spectrometry data with Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking. Nature biotechnology, 34(8), 828.

Xylomenos, G., Ververidis, C. N., Siris, V. A., Fotiou, N., Tsilopoulos, C., Vasilakos, X., ... & Polyzos, G. C. (2014). A survey of information-centric networking research. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 16(2), 1024-1049.

Yan, Q., Yu, F. R., Gong, Q., & Li, J. (2016). Software-defined networking (SDN) and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in cloud computing environments: A survey, some research issues, and challenges. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 18(1), 602-622.