Question 1: What is network protocol? Why we need computer networking?

Network Protocol
Simply, a protocol is a set of rules. A network protocol is a set of rules
followed by the network. Network protocols are formal standards and policies made up of rules,
procedures and formats that defines communication between two or more devices over a
network. Network protocols conducts the action, policies, and affairs of the end-to-end process
of timely, secured and managed data or network communication. They define rules and
conventions for communication. They incorporate all the processes requirement and constraints
of initiating and accomplishing communication between computers, routers, servers and other
network enabled devices. Network protocols must be confirmed and installed by the sender and
receiver to ensure network\data communication. It also applies software and hardware nodes that
communicate on a network. There are several types of network protocols.

why do we need computer networking?

Whenever you read the word, “Networking” two
other words might pop up in your mind “Communication, and sharing”. This holds very true for
computer networking. When your computer need to communicate with another computer, for a
simple process of sharing a file, computer networking comes to play. This is why we need
“Computer networking”. To share stuff and to communicate.

Computer networking can help your business grow

A good computer networking solution can
be very beneficial for your business. It lets you store important business data in a centralized
location. This allows the various computers in the network to retrieve important data from the
main location. Additionally, computer networking lets you access the data from the other
computers on the same network, and modify it according to your needs. Computer networking
enables employees to share ideas more easily and work more efficiently. It increases their
productivity and generates more income for the company. More importantly, computer
networking improves the way companies offer their services to the world. Let’s now talk more
specifically about how computer networking can help you, and your business.
Question 2: Differentiate between Intranet and Extranet. Explain their
working environment and also discuss their advantages and disadvantages.
Intranet
An intranet is a private network that allows employees and staff in an enterprise to
securely share knowledge and information easily within the company or organization.
Information, tools, directories, and services available on a company’s intranet are typically
unavailable to the general public. The prefix "intra" implies that an intranet is designed for
internal communications only. Intranets are usually restricted to specific local area networks
(LANs) or wide area networks (WANs).

Extranet
An extranet is a private network that leverages internet technology and public
telecommunication system to share part of a business's information or operations over a secure
system with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses. An extranet is often
considered part of a company's intranet that is extended to authorized users outside of the
organization.

Working Environment of Intranet

An intranet is a secure way of sharing information
between employees. In order to access your company’s intranet, you’ll need to be connected to
its LAN (Local area network). A web server is used to host the intranet and the machine itself
will depend on the content and the amount of users.
For example if the intranet is going to have content such as videos that will be streamed by a lot
of employees then the server will need to be of a higher specification.
Again for an intranet this will require an IP within the LAN. Intranet is in the long term a
cheaper way of conveying these sorts of messages as although the equipment is needed initially,
you will then be able to distribute messages etc freely as opposed to paper based notes.

Working environment of Extranet

When you try to connect to a VPN usually their is VPN
native desktop client application (installed on your system) which asks for login credentials and
then tries to connect with the VPN server to authenticate, once authenticated the VPN server
assigns an IP address to the client from the VPN's subnet. Now the client will take care of re-
configuration of routing tables so that whenever it needs to send a packet to a system in the VPN 
it encapsulates that whole packet with a packet destined to the publicly facing VPN server. This
is called tunneling. The idea is to do this configuration of routing tables which is done by the
VPN client which is probably getting controlled by a built-in or installed browser plugin for IE.
 when your company can offer a platform for customers and suppliers where you can easily
collaborate. This is not only making your daily work with external partners more effective, but
also serves as a valuable binding element to keep business partners working with you.
Email is still an important factor in this mix. But with a modern extranet it only triggers you for
updates that happen in the system.
One of the best effects is increased transparency. When you are able to move off the record
communication into the extranet, every team member in both companies can see what happens
and chime in if needed or pick up stuff that has fallen through the grid.
An extranet that fosters collaboration between teams and companies needs a lot of trust and
respect. You need to be able to play a fair game and meet as equals.

Advantages and disadvantage of intranet and extranet

Advantages:
Some of the advantages and benefits a company can realize from establishing a robust intranet
are as follows:
 Workforce productivity: Intranets can help users to locate and view information faster
and use applications relevant to their roles and responsibilities.
 Enhanced collaboration: Information is easily accessible by all authorized users, which
enables teamwork. Being able to communicate in real-time through integrated third party
tools promotes the sharing of ideas and helps boost a business’ productivity
 Time Savings: Intranets allow organizations to distribute information to employees on
an as-needed basis in real time. Employees may link directly to relevant information as
soon as the organization makes it available on the intranet.
 Reduced Costs: Users can view information and data via web-browser rather than
maintaining physical documents such as procedure manuals, internal phone list and
requisition forms. This can potentially save the business money on printing, duplicating
documents, and the environment as well as document maintenance overhead.
 Improved Communication: Intranets can serve as powerful tools for communication
within an organization. A great real-world example of where an intranet helped a
company communicate is when Nestle had a number of food processing plants in
Scandinavia. Their central support system had to deal with a large number of requests for
information every day. When Nestle decided to invest in an intranet, they quickly
realized the savings. In fact, the savings from the reduction in calls was substantially
greater than the investment in the intranet.
Like intranets, extranets have some distinct advantages for the organizations establishing
them. Several of these benefits are explained below:
 Build customer relationship: Customers who are provided access to timely information
about product availability, specifications and cost increase their efficiency. In business-
to-business relationships, the more timely and accurate information a business makes
 available to their customers, the more likely they are to retain that business. Collaborate
with other companies on joint development efforts
 Reduced margin of error: An extranet can reduce a company’s margin of error thereby
reducing or eliminating costly errors, especially with something as complex as processing
orders from distributors and suppliers. Customers can be given access to their accounts to
verify order history, account balances and payments.
 Timely and accurate information: On an extranet a business can instantly change, edit,
and update sensitive information such as price lists or inventory information. Compared
to typical paper-based publishing processes, an extranet offers a unique opportunity to
quickly get information into the right hands before it’s out-of-date.
 Reduced inventory: One of the greatest advantage of a business-to-business extranet is
its impact on supply-chain management. By linking the inventory system directly to a
supplier, businesses can process orders as soon as the system knows they are needed, thus
reducing the stock a business keeps on hand and generally making the procurement
process more efficient.
 Flexibly: A well designed extranet allows remote and mobile staff to access core
business information 24 hours a day, irrespective of location. This allows employees to
work remotely or respond to critical requests for information after normal working hours.
As businesses expand globally, the ability to work across time zones is enhanced by the
establishment of an extranet.

Disadvantages of the Intranet:

 Information Security Risk: Although Intranet software does have security settings, this
technology is quite susceptible to being hacked or damaged. There is a chance that data
may be stolen and privacy may be violated. This puts your business and its work at quite
a risk.
 Less Personal Interaction: With Intranet providing a digitized workplace, there will
probably be a decrease in the face-to-face interactions that the workers have since they’ll
be working mainly on computers. The lack of direct interaction may possibly hinder the
cooperation and personal bonds between colleagues.
 Change in Work Culture: With the increase in productivity that advantages of intranet
bring, it will also bring in more and more customers, queries and tasks. A number of
tasks compared to workers available to meet the demand may not be in proportion,
which consequently leads to a pile up of work. This will send the business into chaos as
they cannot meet the rapid demand.

Disadvantages of the Extranet:

 Extranets can be costly to apply and maintain within an organization.

 One of big problem is the protection of extranets when dealing with precious
information. System access should be controlled and checked properly to protect the
system and information going into the incorrect hands.

 Extranets can decrease personal face-to-face contact with clients and business partners.
This can cause a lack of communication between employees, clients and organization.

Question 3: Compare the two-tier and three-tier architectures. Which

do you think is the likely candidate for an E-commerce site? Design and
explain how it would work.

Two-Tier Architecture:
The two-tier is based on Client Server architecture. The two-tier
architecture is like client server application. The direct communication takes place between
client and server. There is no intermediate between client and server. Because of tight
coupling a 2 tiered application will run faster.
The Two-tier architecture is divided into two parts:
1. Client Application (Client Tier)
2. Database (Data Tier)
On client application side the code is written for saving the data in the SQL server
database. Client sends the request to server and it process the request & send back with data.
The main problem of two tier architecture is the server cannot respond multiple request
same time, as a result it cause a data integrity issue.

Three-tier architecture
Three-tier architecture is a  client-server software architecture
pattern in which the user interface (presentation), functional process logic ("business rules"),
 computer data storage and data access are developed and maintained as independent
modules, most often on separate platforms.
Three-tier architecture typically comprise a presentation tier, a business or data access tier,
and a data tier. Three layers in the three tier architecture are as follows:
1) Client layer:
It is also called as Presentation layer which contains UI part of our application. This layer is
used for the design purpose where data is presented to the user or input is taken from the
user. For example designing registration form which contains text box, label, button etc.
2) Business layer:
In this layer all business logic written like validation of data, calculations, data insertion etc.
This acts as a interface between Client layer and Data Access Layer. This layer is also called
the intermediary layer helps to make communication faster between client and data layer.
3) Data layer:
In this layer actual database is comes in the picture. Data Access Layer contains methods to
connect with database and to perform insert, update, delete, get data from database based on
our input data.

Obviously 3-tier architecture is better candidate for E-commerce site.Because Layers are the

way to logically break code into components and tiers are the physical nodes to place the
components on. A two layer architecture is usually just a presentation layer and data layer.
Design of 3-tier architecture and explanation about how does it work:

Explanation:
Three-tier architecture allows any one of the three tiers to be upgraded or replaced
independently. The user interface is implemented on a desktop PC and uses a standard graphical
user interface with different modules running on the application server. The relational database
management system on the database server contains the computer data storage logic. The middle
tiers are usually multitiered.
The three tiers in a three-tier architecture are:
1. Presentation Tier: Occupies the top level and displays information related to services
available on a website. This tier communicates with other tiers by sending results to the
browser and other tiers in the network.
2. Application Tier: Also called the middle tier, logic tier, business logic or logic tier, this
tier is pulled from the presentation tier. It controls application functionality by
performing detailed processing.
3. Data Tier: Houses database servers where information is stored and retrieved. Data in this
tier is kept independent of application servers or business logic.

Example:
suppose you are looking to find movie times in your area using a web application.
First, the presentation layer displays a web page with some fields for you to enter, like the date
you want to view the movie and your zip code. This information is then passed to the application
layer, which formats a query and passes it to the database layer. The database system runs the
query and returns the results (a list of movies available within your geographic area) to the
application layer, which formats it into a web page. The page is then sent back to the browser,
where the presentation layer displays it on a laptop or other device.

References
https://www.interserver.net/tips/kb/common-network-protocols-ports/
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-need-computer-networking
https://www.inspiredtechs.com.au/computer-networking/
https://www.innovativearchitects.com/SharePoint-Resources/intranets-vs-
extranets.aspx
http://www.simplynotes.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/table_diff._001.jpg
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-
introductiontobusiness/chapter/intranets-and-extranets/
https://ls-intranet.net/advantages-disadvantages-intranet-businesses/
https://www.beaming.co.uk/knowledge-base/what-is-intranet-and-how-does-
it-work/
https://www.quora.com/How-does-an-extranet-work
https://www.softwaretestingclass.com/what-is-difference-between-two-tier-
and-three-tier-architecture/
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24649/three-tier-architecture
https://www.izenda.com/5-benefits-3-tier-architecture/