CS 635 Spring 1998 MidTerm Review

The exam will be closed book and closed notes. The exam covers chapters 1-6,8.You can bring a calculator.
To do well on the exam you need to understand the following principles and concepts:

• Know the definition of a  LAN and WAN
• Know what is meant by ``point-to-point'' and ``broadcast'' networks
• Understand why layering is used in building computer networks.
• Understand what an interface is between layers.
• Understand the concept of encapsulation and how it is used in layering.
• Know the difference between the following type of services: reliable delivery, best effort and acknowledged delivery.
• Understand the need for framing.
• Understand the advantages and disadvantages of using a length count, bit delimiters, character delimiters and encoding violations for framing.
• Know the difference between error detection and correction.
• Understand the notion of a sliding window protocol.
• Know the basic idea of the High Level Data Link Control protocol
• Know how to calculate the expected channel utilization for a protocol.
• Packet and Circuit switching
• Encodings (NRZ, Manchester, Diff Manchester, etc.)
• Know the two basic approaches used for the ALOHA protocols and the problemthese protocols had.
• Be familiar with the use of carrier sense protocols.
• Know how the CSMA/CD (collision detection) protocol works.
• Understand how propagation delay is important for networks using CSMA/CD.
• Be familiar with the basic details of the IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet) standard.
• Understand the use of the binary exponential backoff algorithm.
• Know how the 802.4 (Token Bus) protocol works
• Know how the 802.5 (Token Ring) protocol works
• Know how the FDDI works. Know the differences between 802.5 and FDDI protocols.
• Know the relative advantages and disadvantages of the three IEEE 802standards.
• Know where the 802.2 (Logical Link Layer) standard fits in and its serviceoptions.
• Know where the 802.2 (Logical Link Layer) standard fits in and its service options
• Read the assigned papers: "An intro. to LAN", Clark, et. al., "Ethernet", Metcalf, et. al, "Measured Capacity of the Ethernet", Boggs, et. al.