Assessment: Networking Fundamentals

Task

This assessment aims to develop and gauge student understanding of the key topics covered so far by answering the following questions. Answering these questions will help you build some understanding for the next assessment item as well as for the entire subject. It is expected that answers to the assignment questions be succinct (i.e. precise and concise) with all sources of information fully referenced as per APA referencing style. You have to reference the text book and any additional material you have used in your answers.

Note that the guide for APA referencing is provided in the resources section of Interact site of this subject.

Answers MUST be written in your own words. No marks will be awarded for any answer that contains more than 10% direct quote (referenced or unreferenced). One or two sentence answers will be too short and only receive low marks. Answers longer than 1.5 pages (12 point font, single line spacing) may incur a penalty if too much non-relevant information is stated. For mathematical questions it is expected that you show intermediate steps of your working. Just stating the correct solution will result in low marks, on the other hand if the working is correct and you only made minor mistakes, you will still be awarded marks, even though the final answer is wrong.

Question 1

Compare and contrast the OSI reference model with the TCP/IP networking model. Which one do you think is more useful when working with and describing networks and why?

Question 2

Complete the following Hands-On Projects from the prescribed textbook (Pyles, Carel&Tittel 2017)

• Hands-On Project 2-3
• Hands-On Project 2-5

In order to complete this activity, students should insert screenshots in the assignment document along with a short description of each step taken to complete the project.

Question 3

Briefly describe the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP). What is the purpose of the ARP Cache?

Question 4 Case study task

In your role as a Solutions Architect at Foreshore IT Solutions, you are leading a team of several system administrators. Foreshore IT Solutions is a medium sized organization and is currently expanding its operations. The company has acquired six sites across Adelaide to accommodate its various departments. You have been asked to design a network by utilizing 10.0.0.0 private IP address. Your designed network should span six sites with a router at each site to interconnect the entire network. It is assumed that each site will have its own single subnet. Company expects approximately 1200 workstation across all the sites with approximate numbers in each building as follows:

Finance Office - 260 workstations
IT Call Centre - 520 workstations
Research and Development Office - 120 workstations
Marketing Department - 40 workstations
Information technology - 130 workstations
Head Office - 60 workstations

TASK - Write an 800 words (+/- 10%) (Max) report explaining:

a. The detailed design of a simple addressing solution (with diagram(s) and step by step workout of the calculations) that leaves room for growth, is easy to administer and has the minimum wastage of available IP address space.

b. Explain what happens to your design if the number of hosts per network jumps to over 1,024 per building.

Rationale

This assessment aims to assess the following learning objectives of this subject:

• be able to analyze IP addressing requirements and design an addressing scheme;
• be able to analyze the requirements of IP routing and choose appropriate routing methods;
• be able to demonstrate how internetworking devices obtain their network configuration;
• be able to explain how data flows through the internet; and
• Be able to ascertain and evaluate selection of applications and protocols for transferring data across the internet.