Chapter 3: Questions/ Answers for Midterm

1. What is Internet? What are the three basic building blocks of the Internet?

Internet: A means of connecting a computer to any other computer anywhere in the world via
dedicated routers and servers. When two computers are connected, they can send and receive all kinds
of information such as text, graphics, voice, video, and computer programs.

Router: Router routes the data packets (Connection) to computers. Router performs the traffic directing
functions. Router is the traffic police. Router is connected to a Modem. This connection is coming from
Modem.

Server: A server is a computer program (inside a powerful computer) designed to serve requests and
deliver data to a Client (You; requesting data through chrome) in a computer over the internet or a local
network (Modem).

Server serves through a Modem/Router.

The basic building blocks of the internet are

1. packet-switching hardware
2. a communications protocol called TCP/IP
3. client/server computing.

2. What is latency, and how does it interfere with Internet functioning?

Latency is delays in messages caused by the uneven flow of information packets through the network.
The time that it takes for message from its source to destination. So, the timing starts when you hit
“send” and stops when the receivers receive the messages.

So it’s a unit of time, usually seconds. For a fast network, usually milliseconds. And there are 1000 mili
seconds in 1 second.

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3. Explain how packet switching works.

Packet Switching:

A method of slicing digital messages into packets, sending the packets along different communication
paths as they become available, and then reassembling the packets once they arrive at their destination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSlcoQowe9I
 4. How is the TCP/IP protocol related to information transfer on the Internet?

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) are the core communications protocol for the
Internet.

TCP
Protocol that establishes the connections among sending and receiving Web computers and handles the
assembly of packets at the point of transmission, and their reassembly at the receiving end.

IP
Protocol that provides the Internet’s addressing scheme and is responsible for the actual delivery of the
packets.

Each computer has an IP address. There are billions of ip addresses. And it can go trillions.

Relation to information transfer:

The protocols assemble at the starting point of information transfer and again reassemble at receiving
end of information transfer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b58Kjd8Rpo

5. What technological innovation made client/server computing possible?

With the development of personal computers and local area networks during the late 1970s and early
1980s, client/server computing became possible.

Client/server computing is a model of computing in which powerful personal computers and other
Internet devices called clients are connected in a network to one or more server computers.

Client : a personal computer that is part of a network

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwLdKeC8scE

8. What types of companies form the Internet backbone today?

Telecommunication companies that are national carriers such as Sprint, Verizon, Centurylink, Verio are
the internet backbone today. In Bangladesh, Grameen, Robi, Aktel etc.

9. What function do the IXPs serve?

Hubs where the backbone (Telecommunication companies) intersects with local and regional networks
and where backbone owners connect with one another.
In the United States, there are a number of hubs where the backbone intersects with regional and local
networks, and where the backbone owners connect with one another (see Figure 3.13). These hubs
were originally called Network Access Points (NAPs) or Metropolitan Area Exchanges (MAEs), but now
are more commonly referred to as Internet Exchange Points (IXPs). IXPs use high-speed switching
computers to connect the backbone to regional and local networks, and exchange messages with one
another. The regional and local networks are owned by private telecommunications firms; they
generally are fiber-optic networks operating at more than 100 Mbps. The regional networks lease access
to ISPs, private companies, and government institutions.

The direction ----- Optical fiber cable - NAP (Network Access Point) - National ISP - Regional ISP to Local
ISP or MAE (Metropolitan Internet Exchange)
.

10. What is the goal of the Internet2 project?

 Internet2 is in the process of deploying a 100 gigabit-per-second network.

 Internet2 is a consortium of 350 member institutions and 66000 more partners working
together to develop and test new technologies for potential use on the Internet.

 Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the capacity of a wired or wireless network communications link to

transmit the maximum amount of data from one point to another over a computer network, in a
fixed amount of time usually seconds. (How much data packets can be transmitted per second)

 http://www.speedtest.net/

 Gigabit: 15Mbps means 15 million bits per second. A broadband package with an average speed
of 15Mbps means the maximum you will get is fifteen million bits per second. A typical website
like cricinfo.com uses 4457KB per second. 1MB = 1000 KB. 15 MB = 15000 KB. 1GB = 1000 MB.
So, 100 GB is 100000 MBps.

 https://www.webpagetest.org/

 The goal is to create an intelligent global ecosystem that will enable researchers, scientists, and
others to “turn on” high-capacity network connections whenever and wherever they are
needed.

 Benefits: latency solutions; guaranteed service levels; lower error rates; and declining costs.
17. Why was the development of the browser so significant for the growth of theWeb? What is
Mosaic?

Aside from making the content of Web pages colorful and available to the world’s population, the
graphical Web browser created the possibility of universal computing, the sharing of files, information,
graphics, sound, video, and other objects across all computer platforms in the world, regardless of
operating system.

A browser could be made for each of the major operating systems, and the Web pages created for one
system, say, Windows, would also be displayed exactly the same, or nearly the same, on computers
running the Macintosh or Unix operating systems.

As long as each operating system had a Mosaic browser, the same Web pages could be used on all the
different types of computers and operating systems. This meant that no matter what kind of computer
you used, anywhere in the world, you would see the same Web pages.

The browser and the Web have introduced us to a whole new world of computing and information
management that was unthinkable prior to 1993.

Mosaic: Web browser with a graphical user interface (GUI) that made it possible to view documents on
the web graphically

18. What is HTML? What advances and features does HTML5 offer?

HTML: GML (Generalized Markup Language) that is relatively easy to use in Web page design. HTML
provides Web page designers with a fixed set of markup “tags” that are used to format a Web page

HTML5: An major version of markup language for structuring world wide web.

Advance and features of HTML 5:

 HTML5 ‘s video element replaces plugins such as Flash, Quicktime and real player.

 Compatible with CSS3 (Cascading style sheet), Javascripts and HTML5 Canvas

 HTML5 can access built in functionality of mobile devices such as GPS & swiping

 A single HTML5 app requires far less effort to build that multiple native apps for the IOS,
Andriod, Windows phone and other platforms.

 HTML5 apps can be easily linked to and shared on social networks, encouraging viral distribution

 HTML5 apps can be designed to run on mobile devices when they are offline
  Usablenet.com released HTML5 mobile platform called mobile 2.0 system. This system enables
touch based browser, swiping photo galleries, double tapping zoom, scrolling, expanding and
collapsing menus, reaching nearby stores based on current whereabouts.

 HTML5 can cache data in mobile browser. After a user visits a site, part of the site’s database is
stores in the browser, decreasing the number of times the browser must ping the database.

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Case Study: Akamai

https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/cdn/Bangladesh/akamai-market-share

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTYY8BuwNT0

Answer and read Question 1 , 3 and 5.