Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani

Work-Integrated Learning Programmes Division

First Semester 2019-2020

Comprehensive Examination
(EC-3 Make-up)

Course No. : CSI ZG525

Course Title : ADVANCED COMPUTER NETWORKS
Nature of Exam : Open Book
Weightage : 45% No. of Pages =2
Duration : 3 Hours No. of Questions = 5
Date of Exam : Friday, 29/11/2019 (FN)
Note:
1. Please follow all the Instructions to Candidates given on the cover page of the answer book.
2. All parts of a question should be answered consecutively. Each answer should start from a fresh page.
3. Assumptions made if any, should be stated clearly at the beginning of your answer.

Q.1. Give reasons for the following: [3 x 5 = 15]

(a) DSDV may cause stale routing information at the nodes. Justify this statement.
(b) Explain why there could be a small time delay at the beginning of a new connection,
when using DSR as the routing protocol.
(c) Why are packet sizes in AODV uniform, while in DSR it is non-uniform?
(d) What are the methods used by DSR to reduce control overhead?
(e) What are the methods used by AODV to reduce control overhead during route
discovery?

Q.2 (a) Consider the network below. The transport protocol used is TCP-BuS. The initial path
between the sender and receiver is 1 -> 5 -> 4-> 10-> 14 -> 15. Assuming that the new
path established after the link between nodes 4 and 10 breaks, is 1-> 5-> 4-> 12-> 15,
draw the message sequence chart representing the message exchanges in the network,
when the link between nodes 4 and 10 breaks. State any other assumptions that you may
be making. [5]

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Q.2 (b) Explain the need for a route failure timer in TCP-F. Why is this timer not supported by
TCP-ELFN? [2]
Q.2 (c) Give any 3 differences between ERDN and RN messages. [3]

Q.3. Briefly explain how TCP Vegas works. Mention any one advantage and disadvantage of TCP
Vegas when compared to TCP Reno. [3+1+1=5]

Q.4. Explain with an example how oscillations due to policy disputes can happen in BGP. [5]

Q.5. Answer any one of the below questions 5A or 5B. Choose one of 5A or 5B only, and provide
answers to all sub-questions for the chosen question:
Q.5 (a) Answer the following questions: [6 + 4 = 10]
(a) Explain two advantages and disadvantages of Priority Queuing, Fair Queuing and
Weighted Fair Queuing.
(b) In a router, if the volume of ingress higher-priority traffic becomes excessive,
lower-priority traffic can be dropped as the buffer space allocated to low-priority
queues starts to overflow. Suppose you have to design a queuing mechanism
which is robust to the presence of misbehaving high priority flows. Explain the
design of the queuing discipline that you will develop, for such a scenario.

Q.5 (b) Answer the following questions:

(a) What is VLAN translation? Briefly outline any 3 methods used to implement
VLAN translation. [1 + 3 = 4]
(b) Consider the partial unmodified Ethernet frame format given below. Show how the
modified frame will look like, if this frame is tagged with an 802.1Q tag with
priority = 0, CFI/DEI = 0 and ID = 10. Show how the original frame will be
modified, if it is double tagged, with ID = 20. You may assume values for the
other fields in the tag/header where required. [3 + 3 = 6]

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