Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Objectives After completing this subject students should understand local area network (LAN) hardware and software; and have had use of application program interfaces for LANs.
Synopsis Media issues: data link protocols. The OSI model and its application to LANs and WANs: MAC-level and related interfaces, CSMA/CD, Token Bus, Token Ring, fibre-optic distributed data interface. Personal computers and networks operating systems. PC networking: Netbois, XNS, TCP/IP, Novell Advanced Netware, OS/2 Lan Manager (Lan Server), client-server systems. Extending the LAN: metropolitan and wide-area networks, repeaters, bridging, routing, gateways, multi-protocol environments, internetworking protocols - TCP/IP, OSI, network management, GOSIP and the future.
Assessment Examination (2 hours): 50% + Practical work: 50%