Network Management: Theory and Practice1 Dr. Bruce S. Elenbogen University of Michigan- Dearborn 4901 Evergreen Road Dearborn, MI 48128 (313) 436-9160 [email protected]

1. Abstract college where 90% of the students work 20 or more hours This paper discussesa non-traditional coursein computer per week to pay for schooling. Approximately 90% percent networking. The course is a laboratory coursewith of graduatesseek employment from local industry directly substantialhands-on experiences, which can help to prepare upon graduation. The computer scienceprogram is recently studentsfor jobs in industry as soon as they graduatefrom accredited and hosts about 400 majors supported by 12 an undergraduateinstitution. This courseis not meant to faculty members.The institution supports 10 computer replace the traditional network coursebut to supplementit labs containing mostly Intel based computerswith about 40 by teaching how computernetworks work in practice and and 20 Macintoshes. These labs are fully by exploring new topics such as , high networked and reside in several buildings connected by a speednetworking, / computing and . backbone. 1.1 Keywords The required semester long network course follows the network, course,undergraduate, practical “Computer Networks” text by Peterson and Davie [5], and covers the seven layer OS1model, TCP/IP, 2. Introduction , encoding, error correction and detection, ARQ The area of computer networks is very broad and growing protocols, , and congestion control. larger every day. Typical undergraduatecourses in the field There are typically two to three computer projects including only addressthe basic principles of computer networks and some network simulation, some work with protocols and do not have the scope to cover internetworking, security, someclient/server computing using sockets. client/server computing and high-speed networks. Additionally, the first course give little or no experience Automobile and parts manufacturers dominate local setting up and maintaining a real computer network, and industry. These companies and others are in need of thus does little to prepare students for jobs directly out of qualified system administrators. The dominate platform is undergraduateschool. This paper discussesa secondcourse Intel basedcomputers running the NT operating systembut in networking from the system administrator point of view. which are required to communicateto uND( and Macintosh The course addressessome of the deficiencies of the first . The automobile manufactureshave someneed course and attemptsto better prepare students for jobs and for high performance computing for CAM. However, they graduatework. have for the most part eliminated many of their rnain&mes and now have a vast number of lower end computers 3. Background networked together. The automobile industry is expanding The host institution is a primarily undergraduatecommuter it’s networking demandsby having sales and inventory on- line and by experimenting with in- training over the network. The BellSouth conference and other publications [2,3] called attention to the importance of computer networks at both the undergraduateand graduatelevels as well the need Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that for laboratories and course work. Similarly the NSF report copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advan- on networking and [6] expressed “an tage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to ! urgent need for educational programs to keep up with the redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission andlor’a fee. rapid advancesthat have occurred in this area.” Several SIGCSE ‘99 3/99 New Orleans, LA, USA 0 1999 ACM l-691 13-0%6/99/0003...$5.00 universities have begun work on a telecommunicationssuite of coursesat both the undergraduateand graduatelevel [ 11.

’ This work partially supported by NSF-DUE 9750885

119 Due to the premium paid by industry, student enthusiasm in teams of 2 for most labs, but work in groups of 4 and 8 for the computer network coursesis very high. The course when there is not enough equipment to go around. described in this paper also servers as an excellent course The primary text is “Hands on Windows NT 4.0 for students who are weaker in mathematics. Finally, the Server with Projects” [4] and is supplementedfrom a wide course is popular among studentswho are curious about the variety of material found in other texts and on the . actual mechanics of computers and networks as well as those who are excited about high speed networks and applications. 5.1 Laboratory exercises 4. The Laboratory Week 1 Although the host institution is very fortunate to have had Lecture on an overview of NT as comparedto , and the laboratory partially funded through a NSF-IL1 grant. A UNIX networks. Overview of the laboratory equipment less cutting-edge laboratory can be constructed for only a and laboratory rules. In the laboratory, studentsperform a moderate amount of money (on the order of $20,000 plus remote installation of both server and client machines computers). The laboratory consists of 16 Pentium II (using generic settings). For most experiments, all but one computers, running Windows NT, connected by twisted computer (the primary) is setup as a secondary server. pair cable. The computers can be connected by either However in the beginning of the course, studentsdeal with lo/100 Mbs hubs, a 100 Mbs , or by a fiber single computer networks and make clients out of connection to an ATM switch. The laboratory has both an neighboring machines. connection to the campusserver as well as a phone Week 2 jack. The laboratory is shared by several classes. Removable hard drives were purchased so that work done Lecture on hard drives, memory and cables. This lecture by studentsin this course has a minimal effect on the other comparesvarious types of components as to functionality, classes. The laboratory is also used to support a suite of current prices and current trends. In the laboratory, students Microsoft Certification courses,which generatesrevenue to remove and install hard drives, memory as well as create keep the lab current. and test cable. Additional equipment that can be borrowed, includes raw Week 3. twisted pair cable, a cable crimping tool and analyzer, a Lecture on various LAN configurations and protocols. In Macintosh, a Unix , a network , some old the laboratory, students experiment with various protocols external modemsand an old campusrouter. Someof these and layouts of the network. items are only in the network lab for the week in which they Week 4 are studied. Software needed for the course include: Windows NT server software, a traffic analyzer, a proxy Lecture on server functions, administration tools and server, a fnewall package and a Domain Name Server. administration duties. In the laboratory, studentsconfigure Severalitems such as the and software servers and clients as well as create users, groups and can be downloadedfree from the Internet. assignrights to thesegroups. Week 5 5. The Course The course is roughly divided into NT administration for Lecture on domains, relationships and directories. In the the first 9 weeks and selected topics for the remainder of laboratory, students set up domains and experiment with the semester. Although the course focuses on NT access to various domains available with different administration, the instructor attempts to emphasize the configurations. administration tasks that are platform independent. Topics Week 6 include: NT overview, LAN, Configurations, protocols, hardware, clients, installation, domains, users and groups, Lecture on adding shared devices (printers, etc.) shared file management, printers, monitoring, UNIX, and connections to non-NT networks. In the laboratory, Macintosh, connections, Domain Name Service, students add various printers and modems. Students also , the intemet, routing, switching, video, ATM, connect the Macintosh and Unix station to their network. analysis,benchmarking, and Novell Netware. Week 7 Each ninety-minute class features approximately twenty- Lecture on monitoring system performance and status. In minute of lecture on the topic of the day, followed by a the laboratory, students simulate activities and analyze the laboratory exercise that puts into practice the concepts performance of users, memory usage, traffic volume and previously discussed. Student’s grades are computed by patterns, and CPU usage. Students also generatestatistics, evaluation of their laboratory reports, some homework which will be used later when ATM and switched networks exercises,a midterm and an oral presentation on a cutting are studied. These will also be used to help tune edgeaspect of computer networks. Studentstypically work the network.

120 Week 8 the course. There are many topics such as security and Lecture on various maintenancejobs and techniques. In the distributed ,which can added or enhanced to lab, studentsperform various backups using automatic tape customize the course to the equipment available and the and a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID). interest of faculty, studentsand local industry. For example, the use of Windows NT can easily be replaced by another Week 9 networking system. The class reviews for ninety minutes and then spends Institutional support is very high for the course since it another ninety minutes taking a closed book and a practical generatesa pool of qualified students who can administer examination. The practical part of the exam has studentsdo the at low cost. Care should be taken in simple administrator functions as well as one trouble using analysis tools since many tools can be used to gain shooting exercise. illegal entry into accounts. The class is removed from the Week 10 campusnetwork when these exercisesare performed. Lecture on bridges and routing. In the laboratory, the class 7. Conclusions experiments with configuring and measuring performance The course has been very popular with students, local of the . industry and the campus administration. Student reaction Week 11 has been very positive and comments such as “at last a course that will help me get a good job” are common. Lecture on ATM and LANE. In the laboratory, studentsset Local industry also has positive comments on the course up and experiment with ATM. and is investigating ways to allow employees to take the Week 12 course over the Internet. Campusadministration is pleased Lecture on setting up a domain name server (DNS). In the with the opportunity to get more qualified help to nm the laboratory, students set up a DNS server and create an campusnetwork, as well as the extra revenue generatedby email and web server. the Microsoft Certification courses. The described course has become a regular offering at the host institution and if Week 13 the current high demand continues, will be offered twice a Lecture on point to point protocol (PPP) and compression year. Some laboratories and lectures are now available on techniques. In the laboratory, the class set up a PPP server at my web site, however these are still preliminary. and experimentedwith sending video over the network. 8. References Week 14 PI Bernard, A.C.L, Bryant B.R., Jones, W.T. and Reilly Lecture on security issues. In the laboratory, set up and K.D. A Undergraduate experiment with proxy serversand firewalls. Specialization in and Computer Week 15 Networking, Proceedings of 27” SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 1996, Lecture on Novell. Studentsset up Novell network. 324-328. Week 16 PI Hartmanis J. and Lin H. Computing the Future: A Student presentations on new developments in computer Broader Agenda for Computer Science and networks. Past topics have included: , cable Engineering, National Academy Press,1992. modems, phone calls on the internet, intemet ethics and [31 Jones,W.T. and McGuirt, F.M. Computer Scienceand copyright law, compression techniques, and playing Telecommunications: Challenges and Opportunities, on the intemet. (invited presentation), Bell South Foundation In several of the experiments students must find, diagnose Conference on Telecommunications: Connecting and fm a problem placed in their equipment. These College Studentsto the , 1990. problems are based on actual problems encountered by 141 Palmer, M.J. Hands on NT 4.0 system administrators at the institution and in local Server with projects, Course , Cambridge industry. Additionally, the class occasionally has the MA, 1997. opportunity to take “field trips” to help out the campus system administrators when non-security related problems [51 Peterson,L.L., and Davie, B.S Computer Networks: A arise or when new equipment needsinstallation. SystemsApproach, Morgan Kaufinarm, 1996. 161Research Priorities in Networking and 6. Suggestions for Other Institutions Communications, Report to the NSF Division of The course is easily adaptable to other institutions. The Networking and Communications Research and high cost items in the course include: the ATM switch, the Infrastructure, 1992. Ethernet switch and the router. These items can be borrowed, replaced or simulated with sharewaresoftware in

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