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 [3 Marks]
Write functions of each layer of OSI reference model, also differentiate between hardware and software layers. Explain your view; why Network layer of OSI model is called Internet layer in TCP/IP networking model?
Question 2 [3 Marks]
Complete the following Hands-On Projects from the prescribed textbook (Pyles, Carel & Tittel 2017)
Hands-On Project 2-3
Hands-On Project 3.2
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 [4 Marks]
For any data communication, MAC and IP addresses play very important role, explain why these two types of address are important and what critical role ARP protocol plays in this scenario?
Question 4 Case study task [5 Marks]
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 large organisation and is currently expanding its operations. The company was using six sites across Brisbane to accommodate its various departments. These departments are interconnected by three routers.
Company’s current network is shown as above, which include following departments at various sites:
Site
Department
No of Hosts
HQ
Sales
16000
Marketing
8000
BR1
Advertising
2000
Online Sales
4000
BR2
Product Support
1000
Technical Support
500
Recently, company has experienced huge growth in their business, and need to employ more employees who will need more devices (hosts). Company is expecting 40% growth.
You are required to recalculate IP addressing scheme for this network to accommodate 40% growth, for example; Sales department will grow by 6400 hosts. Also provide subnets for inter router connections which should have subnet mask 255.255.255.252
Use network ID 180.XY.0.0/16 (where XY are last digits of your student ID).
TASK – Write a 800 words (+/- 10%) (Max) report explaining:
- The detailed design of a simple addressing solution (with diagram(s) and step by step workout of the calculations) that accommodate for growth, is easy to administer and has the minimum wastage of available IP address space. [3 Marks]
- Provide IP addresses and Subnet Masks for all LAN and WAN interfaces. [1 Mark]
- Suppose in further future, this company experience more growth, which leaves company with no option except upgrading this network from IPv4 to IPv6, investigate/explore the technical changes you may need to implement for such upgrade
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