Computer Facilities and Network Management

BUS3150

Tutorial - Week 10

*** FOR TUTORS ONLY ***

The answers provided here are only brief guides. If you have any comments or suggestionsfor improvement to this, please let me know so that your improvements may be included in thisdocument.

Objective of this tutorial:The objective of this tutorial is to strengthen the conceptual understanding of the material cov-ered in the lecture by reflecting on the material in small groups. The tutor will provide feedbackto enhance your understanding and diminish misunderstandings, if any.

How to participate in the tutorial:Form groups of four to five students in each and discuss the answers for the following reflectivequestions with the group members. After spending about ten minutes for each question, dis-cussing with group members, discuss your solutions with the tutor and other groups. The tutorwill provide feedback on your solutions.

Question 1- Consider the following scenario. An educational organisation wants to createa small laboratory containing 8 desktop computers and 1 printer (uses a USB interface).The laboratory requires these computers to be networked to enable file sharing and printersharing. The organisation has an existing backbone network with a connection to a routerlocated near the laboratory. The laboratories LAN should connect to this router.

Backbone

Figure 1: Laboratory Setup

BUS3150 Computer Facilities and Network Management Tutorial - Week 10

(a) Common LAN implementations include Ethernet (IEEE 802.3), Token Ring (IEEE802.5) and Wireless (IEEE 802.11). Analyse the advantages and disadvantages ofeach of these LAN technologies and make a recommendation for this educationalorganisations new laboratory.

(b) At present, Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 is the most common LAN technology used. It can beconfigured using two topologies, bus and star. Analyse the advantages and disadvan-tages of each of these topologies and make a recommendation for this educationalorganisations new laboratory. Include in this analysis the type of transmission mediathat is used for each case.

(c) In the past, bus style LANs where the most common. However, today they havemostly been replaced with star style topologies. The central point of the star may bea broadcast hub, a switch or a router. Analyse the advantages and disadvantages ofeach of these star configurations and make a recommendation for this educationalorganisations new laboratory.

(d) The laboratory requires that each user has access to the single USB printer. It alsorequires that each user has access to a small set of software packages. Explain howthis can be achieved.

• USB printer:– Connect to one of the hosts and add print serving.– Some network routers support USB printers and include printer server soft-

ware. This will be a more expensive solution, however does not rely on theprinter server PC being switched on and operational.

• Software - either remote install the software on each machine or serve the soft-ware from a single machine using sharing.

When analysing LAN technologies for practical implementations, it is good to consider the costof the various components. Most computer parts supplies advertise prices in print media and onthe Internet. Some examples for Australian prices include CPL (http://www.cpl.net.au/)and IT Computer Supermarket (http://www.itsupermarket.com.au/).

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http://www.cpl.net.au/http://www.itsupermarket.com.au/

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