1. Business case: Analyze the following business case and provide your recommendations.

Big E. Bank

Nancy Smith is the director of network infrastructure for Big E. Bank (BEB). BEB has just purchased Ohio Bank (OB), a small regional bank that has 30 branches spread over Ohio. OB has a WAN connecting five cities, in which it has branches, to OB's main headquarters in Columbus. It has a series of MANs in those cities (MAN is a "Metropolitan Area Network", which usually spans a city), which in turn connect to the LANs in each of the branches. The OB network is adequate but uses very different data link, network and transport protocols than those used by BEB's network. Smith's task is to connect OB's network with BEB's network. She has several alternatives. Alternative A is to leave the two networks separate but install a few devices in OB's headquarters to translate between the set of protocols used in the BEB network and those in the OB network so that messages can flow between the two networks. Alternative B is to replace all the WAN, MAN, and LAN network components in OB's entire network so that OB uses the same protocols as BEB and the two can freely communicate. Alternative C is to replace the devices in OB's WAN (and possibly the MANs) so that each city (or each branch, if the MANs are replaced as well) can communicate with the BEB network but leave the LANs in individual branches unchanged. In this case, the device connecting the MAN (or the branch) will translate between the OB protocols and the BEB protocols. Your job is to develop a short list of pros and cons for each alternative and make a recommendation.

2. What are the network applications? Give two examples.

3. What is packet switching, and why is packet switching relevant to the Internet?

4. Give a brief explanation of the layers in the ISO Open system Interconnection model.

5. Describe types of interferences and how to mitigate them.

6. Describe multi-mode and single-mode fiber and their limitations.