RAPHEL BANDA PCF113 DNEP 3.

2 ROUUTING AND SWITCHING 2

1. Describe the concept of classless addressing, indicating the reason why it was proposed
and providing an example of a classless IP address. [5]
Classless addressing is an improved IP addressing system which replaced the older class-
ful addressing system which is based on classes.
it was proposed because it makes IP addressing more efficient
it can also be called classless inter-domain routing.
example: 20.10.10.10/27
2. Draw a diagram to show the fields of a frame as used by Ethernet / IEEE 802.3. [5]

PREAMBLE

7 BYTES

SOF 1 BYTE

DESTINATION ADDRESS

6 BYTES

SOURCE ADDRESS

6 BYTES

DATA + PADDING

MINIMUM:46 BYTES

MAXIMUM 1500 BYTES

CRS

4 BYTES

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3. Explain the role of the preamble and start of frame delimiter fields in an Ethernet frame.
[4]
Preamble is the starting field that provides alert and timing pulse for transmission.
start of frame is a 1 byte field in a IEEE 802.3 frame that contains the alternating pattern
of the ones and zeros ending with two ones.

4. What range of sizes is permitted for the data/payload field of an Ethernet [4]
minimum data has to be 46 bytes and the maximum can be 1500 bytes.

5. Why was it necessary to specify both a minimum length and a maximum length for the
data/payload field of an IEEE802.3 frame? [6]
it is necessary because data frame size accommodate different traffic need.
if there is one fixed frame size, users could end up wasting a lot of network bandwidth, or
could end up wasting a lot of bandwidth with protocol overhead for sever backups with
smaller frame sizes.
one size does not fit all.
the minimum makes sure that a frame completely filled the medium from end-end so that
other hosts could detect that the medium is in use.
the minimum is too small for some medium so a maximum needed to be determined.

6. Communication can be described as broadcast, unicast or multicast. With reference to

frame switching process, explain them with the aid of diagrams. [9]

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Unicast address represent a single LAN interface. A unicast frame will sent to a specific
device, not a group of devices on the LAN. The unicast address will have the value of the
MAC address of the destination device

Multicast represent a group of devices in LAN. A frame sent to multicast address will be
forward to a group of devices on the LAN. Multicast frames have value of 1 in the least
significant bit of the first octet of the destination address, this helps a network to
distinguish between unicast and multicast addresses

Broadcast represent all devices on the LAN. Frames sent to a broadcast address will be
delivered to all devices on the LAN. The broadcast address has the value of
FFFF.FFFF.FFFF (all binary ones). The switch will flood broadcast frames out all ports
except the port that received on

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7. Briefly explain the concept of floating static routing give examples. [6]
is static routing that has an administrative distance greater than the administrative
distance of another static route or dynamic routes. They are very useful when providing a
backup to a primary link.
examples: RIP=120 , OSPF 110 , EIGRP=90, IS-IS=115, IGRP=100
8. Describe cut-through (real time) mode and store and forward mode? [6]
cut through mode looks up its first 6 bytes of the frame following the preamble then the
LAN switch will check the destination MAC address in its switching table.
store and forward mode will wait until the entire frame has arrived before forwarding it
then the LAN switch will store each complete frame into switch memory buffers and
check errors before making a forwarding decision.
9. Explain and justify which IP routing protocol is best for WAN connectivity in a scenario
where two large businesses have merged together, have routers from different vendors
and want to minimise the impact of routing changes between the organisations.
[8]
EIGRP which is Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol is a hybrid distance vector
protocol which is more scalable and convergence.
it is a popular choice for routing within campus networks both big and small.
it offers the best balance between speed ,scalability and ease of management.