Network Structures: Exercises

Background (SG Ch.15.1)
1. What is the difference between a multiprocessor and a distributed system?
2. Define site, node, resources, server, client.
3. What is the difference between a network OS and a distributed OS?
Motivation (SG Ch.15.2)
1. What are the motivations for building distributed systems?
2. What are some examples of resources that can be shared?
3. What is load sharing?
Topology (SG Ch.15.3)
1. What criteria may be used to evaluate network topologies, wrt distributed systems?
2. Draw a table comparing the various network topologies according to the criteria.
Network types (SG Ch.15.4)
1. What is the main difference between a WAN and a LAN?
2. Characterize LANs and WANs in terms of
  - Common network configurations
  - Communication speeds
  - Communication error rates
  - Network link hardware
3. What is a gateway?
Communication
1. What five issues have to be addresses in designing a network?
2. How are processes generally identified on a network?
3. What are two ways of implementing name resolution?
4. Explain how DNS works.
5. What is routing?
6. What is a router?
7. What is a routing table?
8. What is a routing protocol?
9. Explain fixed, virtual, and dynamic routing.
10. What is a packet?
11. Differentiate between connectionless and connection communication.
12. What is the basic idea of circuit switching?
13. What is the basic idea of message switching?
14. What is the basic idea of packet switching?
15. What is the main advantage of packet switching?
16. When is CSMA/CD not a good idea?
17. Explain how a token ring network operates.
18. What are message slots, and how are they used?
Design strategies (SG Ch.15.6)
1. What are the seven ISO network layers?
2. Which layer deals with packets?
3. Give an example of software that resides in the session layer.
4. Which layer has the most potential for making money?
5. What does the physical layer do?
6. Which layer would deal with differences between various machine's representations of integers?
7. Which layer does TCP lie in?
8. What is the advantage of the common TCP/IP implementation over the ISO model?
9. Which layer of the ISO model corresponds to IP?
Networking example (SG Ch.15.7)
1. List the steps required to transfer a packet via IP on an Ethernet.