MGT 5152 Computer Systems Administration

Lecture: Introduction and Course Overview

Lecture: Telecommunications

Outcomes

• Describe telecommunications
• Define basic elements of a telecommunications systems
• Communicate the importance of telecommunications to business
• Identify reasons for studying telecommunications
• List common examples of telecommunications
• Analyze the requirements for telecommunication systems
• Describe circuits and their importance in telecommunications
• Understand the history of telecommunications

Lecture: Networks

Outcomes

• Explain how the earliest computer networks were built to extend existing computing facilities
• Identify that networks were devised to allow multiple computers to access a shared peripheral device such as a printer or a disk
• Discuss the main motivation for the first networks: to share large-scale computational power
• Analyze the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and its concern about the lack of high-powered computers
• Explain why many of the ARPA research projects needed access to the latest equipment
• Understand why each research group wanted one of each new computer type
• Communicate why it became obvious that the ARPA budget could not keep up with demand
• Explain why ARPA decided to give each group one computer
• Know why the ARPA network research turned out to be revolutionary

Lecture: Signals, Media and Data Transmission

Outcomes

• Describe how all computer communication involves encoding data in a form of energy and sending the energy across a transmission medium
• Communicate why hardware devices attached to a computer perform the encoding and decoding of data programmers and why users do not need to know the details of data transmission
• List the media that are used for transmission in modern network systems
• Explain how data can be transferred across such media
• Discuss how transmission forms the basis of data networks
• Define propagation delay as the time required for signal to travel across media
• Describe bandwidth as the maximum times per second the signal can change in data transmission

Lecture: Packets, Frames, Parity, Checksums and CRCs

Outcomes

• Describe the concept of packets, a fundamental idea in network, and explain how a sender and receiver coordinate to transfer a packet
• Define why packet technology was invented to provide fair access in a shared network
• Understand how packets can be implemented in a character-oriented network using a simple frame format
• Explain transmission errors
• Discuss mechanisms that networks use to detect errors

Lecture: Extending Networks (Repeaters, Bridges and Switches)

Outcomes

• Discuss why engineers choose a combination of capacity, maximum delay, and distance achieved at a low cost when designing a network technology
• Describe how the two most popular access mechanisms, CSMA/CD and token passing, each take time proportional to the size of the network
• Explain how a LAN technology works with a fixed maximum cable length to ensure that delays do not become significant
• Communicate how the way hardware is engineered causes another physical limitation
• Define how a signal gradually becomes weaker as it travels along a copper wire

Lecture: Long-Distance and Local Loop Digital Connection Technologies

Outcomes

• Describe why analog signals have problems in a long-distance environment: electrical signals degrade as they pass over copper wires and amplifiers are required to boost the signal
• Discuss how digital communication avoids the problem of noise by encoding the original audio signal into digital form
• Define how signal formats can be converted
• Describe how an A-to-D converter takes an analog signal as input, samples the signal regularly, and computes a number that gives the current level of the signal at the time of the sample
• Discuss how the facilities used for digitized voice differ from the systems used for data: voice systems use synchronous or clocked technology, while most data networks use asynchronous technology
• Analyze why a synchronous network consists of a system designed to move data at a precise rate

Exam

Lecture: Wide Area Networks (WANs), Routing and Shortest Paths

Outcomes

• Consider how basic technologies can be used to build a network that spans a large area
• Describe the basic components used to build a packet switching system that can span a large area
• Explain the fundamental concept of routing and show how routing is used in such network
• Communicate that the key issue that separates WAN technologies from LAN technologies is scalability, and a WAN must be able to grow as needed to connect many sites
• Describe why a technology is not classified as a WAN unless it can deliver reasonable performance for large size networks

Lecture: Network Properties

Outcomes

• Describe LAN technologies that comprise the most common form of private network
• Define how to form a private WAN, and why a corporation must lease connections between its sites from public carriers
• Discuss how a public network is analogous to a telephone system
• Discuss why a feature of a public network is universal communication
• Explain why a public network that is available to many subscribers in many locations is more attractive than one that only serves a small geographic area
• Communicate why the term “public” refers to availability of the service, not to the data transferred

Lecture: Protocols and Protocol Layering

Outcomes

• Describe the OSI’s seven layers that are critical to understanding protocols and protocol layering
• Discuss why the TCP/IP model has become the de facto standard for the Internet
• Explain why each module only communicates with the module for the next highest layer and the module for the next lowest

Lecture: Network Security

Outcomes

• Define what a secure network is in terms of your company
• Describe the complexity of security policies, specifically because they involve human behavior as well as computer and network facilities
• Explain why a security policy cannot be defined unless an organization understands the value of its information
• Describe that the issue of responsibility for information has two aspects: accountability and authorization
• Define accountability and its reference to how an audit trail is kept

Lecture: Network Management

Outcomes

• Describe strategic network management and why it is key to competitive business and optimizing the total cost of ownership for the business
• Discuss why network topologies present managers alternatives dependent on the situation
• Define network sustainment and why supporting the “logistics tail” of the network is the most important part of network management
• Describe how network management software allows a manager to interrogate devices such as host computers, routers, switches, and bridges to determine their status and to obtain statistics about the networks to which they attach
• Define how software also allows a manager to control such devices by changing routes and configuring network interfaces

Lecture: Network Project Management

Outcomes

• Define project and project management, and differentiate between project and process management
• Describe the causes of failed information systems and technology projects
• Explain the basic competencies required of project managers
• Describe the basic functions of project management
• Analyze the role of project management software as it relates to project management tools
• Describe eight activities in project management

Exam