1.3 Computer networks, connections and protocols

Question 1

Factors that affect the performance of networks.

Answer 1

Bandwidth - the amount of data that can be transferred in a given time. The greater the bandwidth the better the network can perform.
The number of users - Too many users can cause network to slow down sue to insufficient bandwidth for the data.
wire - Fibre optic cables have a higher bandwidth then copper.

Question 2

What are the hardware to connect to a LAN?

Answer 2

Network interface card (NIC)
Switches 
Router
wireless access point (WAP)
transmission media

Question 3

What is a network interface card?

Answer 3

Used to allow a device to connect to a network.

Question 4

What is a WAP?

Answer 4

Allow devices to connect wirelessly.

Question 5

What is a switch?

Answer 5

Sends data between computers on a LAN.

Question 6

What is a router?

Answer 6

Sends data between networks by using an IP address.

Question 7

What is a domain name server (DNS)

Answer 7

translates a website’s domain name into its IP address. (conversion of the URL to an IP address)

Question 8

What is the world wide web? (WWW)

Answer 8

Is a collection a collection of websites that are hosted on web servers and accessed through the http protocol.

Question 9

What is hosting?

Answer 9

Is when a business uses its servers to store files of another organisation.

Question 10

What is the cloud?

Answer 10

Servers that can be used to store data and programs that can be accessed and used over the internet.

Question 11

What are the advantage and disadvantage of cloud?

Answer 11

advantage:
- can be accessed any time and anywhere
- large storage capacity
Disadvantages:
- need a connection to the internet to access files
- unclear of who has ownership over cloud data.

Question 12

What are the 2 types of modes of connection?

Answer 12

Wired - ethernet

wireless - WiFi and Bluetooth

Question 13

Compare the benefits and drawback of using wired / wireless connection

Answer 13

advantages:

• data is transferred faster wired compare to wireless
• wired is less likely to have interface compare to wireless.
• wired is more expensive to install then wireless

Question 14

What is encryption?

Answer 14

Is to secure data across networks.

Question 15

What are the steps of encryption?

Answer 15

the data is scrambled into cipher text using a master key.

The data is decrypted by the receiver using the same master key.

Question 16

What are MAC addresses?

Answer 16

There are unique numbers that are assigned to each network interface controller (NIC). This allows a network to identify any device. (The serial number are in hexadecimal values)

Question 17

What are IP addresses? (internet protocol address)

Answer 17

Is the unique identification number given to every device that is connected to the internet.

Question 18

What are the 2 versions of IP addresses?

Answer 18

IPv4 and IPv6

IPv4 has 32 bits and IPv6 has 128 bits

Question 19

Why was IPv6 created?

Answer 19

Due to the increase number of devices that needed unique IP addresses.

Question 20

What are standards?

Answer 20

allows hardware/software to interact across different manufacturers and producers

Question 21

What areas of computing can standards affect?

Answer 21

software files
formats
hardware

Question 22

What are protocols?

Answer 22

A protocol is a set of rules that allows two devices to communicate.

Question 23

What are the common protocols and they purpose. (7)

Answer 23

IP - internet protocol - communicate over LANs and WANs
HTTP - Hypertext transfer Protocol - webpage request
HTTPS - hypertext transfer Protocol Secure - webpage request
FTP - file transfer protocol - file transfer
POP - post office protocol - to retrieve emails
IMAP - Internet message access protocol - to manage mailboxes and retrieve emails (more advance then POP)
SMTP - Simple Mail transfer Protocol - To send emails to a mail server