3.1a - Network Types and Performance

Question 1

What is a network?

Answer 1

More than one computer system connected together for communication and sharing resources.

Question 2

What are the differences between LAN and WAN?

Answer 2

LAN is spread over a small geographical area and uses its own hardware and cabling. WAN is spread over large geographical area and uses external hardware and cabling.

Question 3

How do peer-peer networks function?

Answer 3

Data is shared directly between systems and do not need central server.

Question 4

How do client server networks function?

Answer 4

Clients make requests to the server and the server manages that request and responds.

Question 5

Advantages of star topology

Answer 5

Transfer speeds are generally fast since there is minimal collisions and new nodes can be directly added to central system so network doesn’t need to be shut down.

Question 6

Advantages of mesh topology

Answer 6

If one system fails, packets can take and alternative route and they can withstand large amounts of traffic because mesh has a lot of connections.

Question 7

Five factors that can affect a networks performance.

Answer 7

Number of users, interference, bandwidth (maximum amount of data that can be sent over network once), server/CPU performance, num of data collisions.