CS610 Assignment No.2 Fall 2011 Idea Solution

XYZ is an organization and its network engineer wants to connect two segments with in a building, which device will be used for connectivity? What major tasks will perform this device in this scenario?

Sol:

In this scenario we use Bridge to connect two segments. Bridge is a hardware device which is used to connect LAN segments. Bridges uses NIC to connect LAN segments.

A network bridge has two cables feeding into it, each from a different network. When a message arrives on one cable for a device connected to the other, the bridge reads the destination MAC address on the packet and forwards it to its destination.

• Bridges improve the performance of two segments by connecting them.
• A network bridge provides a way of filtering network broadcasts which speeds up the network so that computers on one side of a network bridge only have to deal with network traffic on their side of the network bridge.
• Using Bridge in a network Privacy also improves by placing computers with sensitive communication on one side of a network bridge.
• A bridge can be used to obtain information about network communication traveling across a bridge. A network administrator wants to monitoring a network By monitoring network communication across a network bridge according to MAC address, a network administrator can better know which computers on a network are sending data where.
• Using bridge in a network the chance of collision also reduced. Because when many computers using a medium chances of collision increases But using bridge which divide LAN into segments the chances of collision reduced.

Question 02

ABC organization is using five switches in its network. They are providing video streaming in different countries, for this they have redundant links for a backup solution. Which algorithm will be used to avoid loops among all switches in this scenario? Describe functionality of that algorithm in few lines.

Sol:

For this purpose we can use Spanning Tree Algorithm. Spanning tree algorithms were developed to prevent redundant transmission of data along intermediate hops between a source and destination host. An algorithm used in transparent bridges that dynamically determines the best path from source to destination. It avoids bridge loops (two or more paths linking one segment to another), which can cause the bridges to misinterpret results.
The algorithm creates a hierarchical "tree" that "spans" the entire network including all switches. It determines all redundant paths and makes only one of them active at any given time.