Review Questions
1.1 Identify and briefly describe at least three ways that networks contribute to business success.
1.2 Briefly describe the traffic, services, and hardware trends in business networks.
1.3 Briefly define convergence and describe the major business benefits of convergence.
1.4 Briefly describe the characteristics of unified communications (UC) and describe how UC contributes to personal, workgroup. and enterprise-wide performance gains.
1.5 Identify and briefly describe the four types of communication traffic carried by busi-ness networks.
1.6 Why has optical fiber cabling become common in enterprise network infrastructures?
1.7 Why is wireless transmission becoming more widely used by businesses?
1.8 Why has distributed processing become common in business networks?
1.9 Contrast the function of application software with that of interconnection software.
1.10 Contrast the major characteristics of WANs with those of LANs and MANs.
Problems
1.1 Do some online research on the characteristics of software as a service (SaaS), plat-form as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Write a short paper describing the differences between these services and identifying some of the major providers of each type.
1.2 Find and view several YouTube videos on unified communications. Identify the URIs for three that you think do a particularly good job illustrating the characteris-tics and capabilities of UC systems. Select the one that you think is best and briefly justify your selection.
1.3 Do some online research to find information on several businesses that have benefited from implementing unified communications. Write a short paper describing how/why they are using unified communications and the business benefits that they have realized.
1.4 Do some online research to find information on several businesses that have imple-mented IPTV. Write a short paper describing how/why they are using 1PTV and the business benefits that they have realized.
1.5 Do some online research on MANs and Metro Ethernet. Write a short paper com-paring Metro Ethernet to other MAN alternatives that are available for business use.
1.6 Use Skype, Yahoo Instant Messenger, or a similar tool that combines real-time voice, video (Webcam), and chat to establish a communication session with a friend or fam-ily member.
Use one or more screen captures to document the convergence of voice. video, and chat for the communication session and paste these to a word processing document in a format (such as .rtf or .docx) that can be opened by your instructor.
Your screen capture(s) should include Webcam windows for yourself and your friend/ family member and a window illustrating your real-time chat.