MCA-103
Computer Networks
How machines talk to each other, layer by layer — from signals on a wire up to DNS, email and the web.
- Semester
- Semester 1
- Credits
- 3
- Scheme
- 3 lectures a week
- Contact hours
- 44 across four units
- Category
- Core
What the paper is
Computer Networks is taught as a walk up the stack. Each unit is a layer or two: what problem that layer solves, what it can assume the layer below already did, and which protocols solve it in practice. Once the shape of that argument is clear the paper stops being a list of acronyms to memorise.
The syllabus follows Forouzan rather than Tanenbaum for most of its structure, which matters when you are picking a book — the chapter references in the scheme line up with the fifth edition of Data Communication and Networking, and the unit on the medium access sub-layer in particular is organised the way Forouzan organises it.
The practical half of the paper lives in MCA-161, the Computer Networks Lab, where the same material is done in a simulator. Addressing especially is worth doing rather than reading: subnetting is the one topic here that nobody has ever learnt from a diagram alone.
What to concentrate on
- Unit III carries the most contact hours and the most marks, and IPv4 addressing is the heart of it. Classful and classless addressing, subnetting and the routing algorithms are the questions that come back every year in some form.
- The data link layer's error detection and correction — CRC, checksums, Hamming distance — is the other reliably examinable block, and it is arithmetic rather than recall, so it can be practised.
- Keep an eye on what the transport layer inherits: TCP's flow control, error control and congestion control only make sense as answers to what the layers below could not guarantee. Framing your revision that way turns four separate topics into one story.
Syllabus, unit by unit
Summarised from the approved scheme. Hours are the contact hours the scheme allots, which is a fair guide to where the marks sit.
Unit I · Introductory concepts and the physical layer
11 hours- Goals and applications of computer networks, OSI reference model, TCP/IP protocol suite, topology and design
- Networking devices: hub, bridge, switch, router
- Physical layer functions, guided and wireless transmission media, communication satellites
- Digital signal encoding, digital-to-analog modulation, digitisation — sampling theorem, PCM, DM — the mobile telephone system, multiplexing
Unit II · Data link layer and medium access
11 hours- Data link layer: error detection and correction, flow control protocols, error control protocols
- Medium access sub-layer: channel allocation problem, ALOHA protocols
- Carrier sense multiple access, CSMA with collision detection, collision-free protocols
- Ethernet, wireless LANs, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
Unit III · Network layer
12 hours- Functions of the network layer
- IPv4: classful and classless addressing, routing algorithms, IP packet format
- IPv6: addressing, neighbour discovery, address auto-configuration
- Mobile IP and mobility in networks, IP multicasting — source-based tree and group-shared tree
Unit IV · Transport and application layers
10 hours- Transport layer functions and protocols, UDP, TCP
- Connection management, flow control, error control and congestion control
- Application layer: DNS, electronic mail, the World Wide Web
- Firewalls, the concept of public and private keys
How it is examined
- Question 1 is compulsory, covers the whole syllabus, and is made of objective or short-answer questions. It carries 12 marks.
- The rest of the paper is four units matching the four above. Each unit sets two questions and you attempt one, so there are four more answers at 12 marks each.
- Examiners are asked to map every question to a course outcome using Bloom's taxonomy, which is why questions are phrased as “apply”, “analyse” or “evaluate” rather than only “explain”.
The pass mark is 40 out of 100 in every paper.
Learning objectives
- Understanding the basics, topologies and working of wired and wireless networks
- Analysing the OSI reference model and the TCP/IP protocol suite
- Designing, calculating and applying routing mechanisms for IPv4 and IPv6
- Identifying an organisation's networking requirements and proposing an architecture
- Working on network addressing, design and implementation
Assumed beforehand
- Basic networking concepts
- Basic operating system concepts
Paired in the scheme with MCA-161 Computer Networks Lab.
Books it is taught from
- TB1Behrouz A. Forouzan, “Data Communication and Networking”, TMH, 5th edition, 2017
- TB2Behrouz A. Forouzan, “TCP/IP Protocol Suite”, Tata McGraw Hill, 4th edition, 2009
- TB3A. S. Tanenbaum, “Computer Networks”, Pearson, 5th edition, 2013
Notes for MCA-103
Lecture notes, question papers and assignments filed against MCA-103 are in the library. Everything there has been checked by a moderator before it appears, and an account is free — new ones are approved by hand, which is what keeps the shelf clean.