UNIVERSITY OF MAURITIUS

FACULTY OF INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

SECOND SEMESTER EXAMINATIONS

APRIL/MAY 2019

PROGRAMME BSc (Hons) Information Systems – E311

MODULE NAME Network Information Systems

DATE Thursday MODULE CODE CSE 3126Y(5)

02 May 2019

TIME 09.45-12.45 hrs DURATION 3 Hours

NO. OF NO. OF QUESTIONS

4 4
QUESTIONS SET TO BE ATTEMPTED

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

Answer ALL questions.

Use of calculator is permitted.

 CSE 3126Y – Network Information Systems

Question 1

(a) Provide a brief discussion of the functions of the following layers:

(i) The Application Layer in the OSI model.

(ii) The Data Link Layer in the TCP/IP model.
[3+3 marks]
(b) State the data units used in the Transport Layer and Network Layer of the OSI
model and provide a protocol used in each of them.
[2 marks]
(c) A company has been allocated a network ID = 201.24.0.0/19 for its network and
is required to create 3 subnets for the network.

(i) State the default subnet mask in dotted decimal form.

(ii) Provide the range of usable IP addresses for all three subnets.
(iii) State the broadcast address for the second subnet.
(iv) Specify the IP address of the 370th host in the third subnet
[2 + 6+ 2 + 3 marks]
(d) The programs (commnads) listed below are used to detect networking problems.
Briefly describe, with the use of an example, how each program (command)
works.

(i) ping
(ii) arp
[2+2 marks]
[Total 25 marks]

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 CSE 3126Y – Network Information Systems

Question 2

(a) Consider sending a 6050-byte datagram into a link that has a Maximum
Transmission Unit of 1196 bytes. Suppose the original datagram is stamped with
the identification number 222, how many fragments are generated? What are
their characteristics?

(You should give the value of the 5 key fields (ID, Datagram Length, Data, M,
and offset) as used in fragmentation for each fragment created).
[6 marks]

(b) Describe TWO disadvantages of using packet fragmentation.

[2*2 marks]

(c) Describe TWO ways by which a router populates its routing table.
[2*2 marks]

(d) Making use of state diagram, explain the following Transmissions Control
Protocol scenarios

(i) Loss Acknowledgement (use the initial sequence number of 140 and a data of
20 bytes to be sent).
(ii) Connection establishment.
[2 + 2 marks]

(e) A transport layer protocol is required to implement a broadcasting message

service. Suggest, giving TWO reasons, which transport layer protocol to use.
[3 marks]

(f) Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) provides a flow control mechanism.

(i) Explain the term flow control.

(ii) Describe how TCP implements the flow control mechanism.

[1+3 marks]
[Total 25 marks]

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 CSE 3126Y – Network Information Systems

Question 3

(a) Computer networks can be classified into 4 different classifications, namely:

Function-Based, Area Coverage-based, Forwarding-based and Ownership-based.
Briefly describe the different Function Based networks.
[3 marks]

(b) Provide TWO advantages and TWO disadvantages of using a star topology.
[4 marks]

(c) A movie having a screen resolution of 1900 x 1200 pixels, usually played at 25
frames per second, uses 3 bytes/pixel. This movie needs to be streamed over a
medium. Find the time taken in minutes, to stream the movie, given that the
length of the movie is 45 minutes, and the medium used is 1000Base-LX (1Gbps).
[3 marks]

(d) You are working as a network consult and you have been asked to advise a client
on the use of the Token based access control method. Briefly elaborate on the
operation of the token based access control method.
[4 marks]

(e) Provide THREE limitations of a firewall.

[3 Marks]

(f) With the aid of a diagram, describe in details how the Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
handshake protocol works.
[8 marks]
[Total 25 marks]

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 CSE 3126Y – Network Information Systems

Question 4

(a) Study Figure 1. Assume that the Client PC wants to retrieve the homepage of the
company Foodhub, www.foodhub.co.mu, but the Client PC does not possess the
www.foodhub.co.mu web server IP address.

Web Server for

www.foodhub.co.mu

Local DNS
for foodhub.co.mu
Root DNS Server

.mu DNS Server

Internet

.co DNS Server

Local DNS

Client PC

Figure 1

(i) Using iterative query, describe the process by which the Client PC will
obtain the IP address for the webserver www.foodhub.co.mu. Assume
there is no cached entry for the .mu at the Local Domain Name Server
(DNS) server.
[5 marks]

(ii) Write down the resource record, for the web server, www.foodhub.co.mu,
whose IP address is 172.89.2.112 and it is stable for 5 hours.
[3 marks]

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 CSE 3126Y – Network Information Systems

(b) Explain, in detail, how an end node (for example a personal computer) finds the
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server when it first boots up.
[4 marks]

(c) There are different Data Traffic Analysis processes available. Describe the Traffic
Volume analysis process.
[2 marks]

(d) You are currently designing the network for a multinational company and you
have adopted a Hierarchical Network design approach.

(i) Provide TWO advantages of adopting a Hierarchical Network design.

(ii) Discuss TWO ways by which redundancy is provided in the Distribution
Layer.
(iii) Suggest, with proper justification, a routing protocol to be used in the
Core Layer.
[2+2+3 marks]

(e) A customer network would like to deploy a network management system (NMS)
to monitor multiple network devices such as a router. As a result, the customer
network will be using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) as its
network management protocol.

(i) Differentiate between a SNMP manager and SNMP agent.

(ii) Describe the messages interaction require for the SNMP manager to
browse all the rows of the router’s internal IP routing table.
[2+2 marks]
[Total 25 marks]

END OF QUESTION PAPER

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