JUNE/JULY 2020 EXAMINATION

PROGRAMME NAME: BACHELOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE (BCS)

YEAR II SEMESTER II

COURSE NAME: BCS207-DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKING

TIME ALLOWED: 24 hours

TIME :14:00hrs to 14:00hrs
DATE: Tuesday 30th June, 2020 to Wednesday 1st July 2020

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATE:

1. This paper has three (3) sections (sections A, B and C) with a total of SIX questions.

2. Each section has TWO questions, and you are required to attempt ONE question from
EACH section.

3. Number each answer clearly in the left margin;

4. Start each answer on a new page;

5. Total marks: 60

TYPE IN YOUR RESPONSES ON AN OFFICIAL ANSWER SHEET AND SUBMIT

BY UPLOADING ON MOODLE BEFORE THE STATED TIME ELAPSES.
NO SCANNED ANSWER SHEETS WILL BE ACCEPTED.
PLEASE TYPE IN YOUR RESPONSES ON THE ANSWER PROVIDED
 SECTION A –CASE STUDIES: ATTEMPT ONE FULL QUESTION (TOTAL: 20
marks)

QUESTION 1

A company has an office based in Wuhan China with a network that houses two web servers.
One of these web servers is designed for external access, the other is an intranet web server
designed only to be accessible to employees of the company. The company also has another
office located in Lusaka, which is externally connected to the Wuhan office through a virtual
private network routed over the public internet. This virtual private network must always be
active, and not raised on demand by individual members of staff in the Wuhan office.

Both offices continue to use IP version 4 addresses, but the company only has a single public
IP address range of 200.10.10.0/26. They require more nodes than the 62 allowed by this range,
and so all nodes in the networks are numbered with private addresses from the 10.0.0.0/8 range.
Describe, with the aid of a diagram, a network topology that will interconnect the two offices
and that will also allow public access to the external facing web server. You must clearly
identify all routing or switching components required, and label IP addresses for at least one
node in Wuhan, one node in Lusaka and all other identified components. Use Classless Internet
Domain Routing (CIDR) notation to label the subnets. The diagram should also indicate how
the routing of private addresses to the Internet is achieved, and the function of the relevant
components should be described.

[20 marks]

[Total Marks: 20]

QUESTION 2

An Internet Service Provider wishes to provide services for domestic customers. These services
are: access to the Internet; a customer facing web service; security through a firewall router; a
Domain Name System (DNS) server; multicast IP television services. Customers will connect
to the ISP by various technologies but you may consider these as point to point links for this
purpose.

a) Describe, with the aid of a diagram, an appropriate network topology for this network.
Ensure that you clearly label all major network elements. [10 marks]
b) Taking the network topology in a), describe the way in which multicast provides the
television services by ensuring data flow to users of the services without impacting on non-
users. [5 marks]
c) Explain why the company would probably not choose to use multicast for a video on
demand service. [5 marks]

[Total Marks: 20]

 SECTION B – SCENARIO BASED – ATTEMPT ONE QUESTION (TOTAL: 20 marks)

QUESTION 3

a) Two customers are connected to the same local telephone exchange and both receive their
Internet connection via ADSL. However, one customer has measured their Internet
connection download data rate to be 5Mbps and the other 2Mbps. Thinking about these
two customer's telephone lines, suggest at least two reasons to explain why their actual data
rates are so different. [6 marks]

b) Your company has been invited to bid for a very large contract to provide the IT support
for a major international cultural event. The company does not have the IT resources
available to provide this support. You have been asked to provide a report comparing the
benefits and drawbacks of buying the required equipment with those of using a cloud
provider.
i. Discuss THREE advantages of the option to use a cloud provider. [5 marks]
ii. Your company decides to select the cloud solution. What effect will this have on
the environmental impact? [9 marks]

[Total Marks: 20]

QUESTION 4

a) Explain the problems that a large international organisation might have when operating a
large leased line full mesh network. Detail how a managed service, such as Frame Relay,
Frame Relay, ISDN, might alleviate those problems. [10 marks]

b) Figure below shows a small scale network comprising one switch and one router. A
personal computer is connected to the switch and a server is connected to the router. All
switch and router ports are IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD.

Fig: Small Scale Network

For this network, consider data being sent from the personal computer to the server and
indicate the values of the source and destination address fields of the frame and the IP
header for each segment. [10 marks]
 [Total Marks: 20]

SECTION C– PROBLEM SOLVING- ATTEMPT ONE QUESTION (TOTAL: 20 marks)

QUESTION 5

a) A company wishes to share data through a website with a portal that trusted users can log
into using a username and password combination.
Describe the extent to which the CIA triad is met by the following implementations:
i. An HTTP based web page accessed through a password and with IP address access
control. [3 marks]
ii. An HTTP based web page that can only be accessed by first connecting via VPN
into the company’s secure intranet. [3 marks]
iii. An SSL/TLS based web page with password based access. [3 marks]
iv. A web page that may only be accessed by coming into the company’s office
[3 marks]

b) Show the encoded signal if the bit stream 10001100010111 is encoded using [8 marks]
i. Polar – NRZ-L encoding
ii. Polar – NRZ-I encoding
iii. Manchester encoding
iv. Bipolar encoding

[Total Marks: 20]

QUESTION 6

a) Explain how a cost-conscious business with multiple sites might benefit from using the
Internet as a public network to provide WAN connectivity between its sites. Detail the
technical considerations, technologies and security operation necessary to utilise this
option. [12 marks]

b) Use clear diagrams to show the encoded signal if the bit, string C9B2 is encoded using:
Assume that the signal has a negative voltage before the first bit is transmitted. [8 marks]
i. Polar – NRZ-L encoding
ii. Polar – NRZ-I encoding
iii. Manchester encoding
iv. Bipolar encoding
[Total Marks: 20]

…………………………………………………………………………………………………
End of the Examination