23-Ind-B4 Design of Information Systems · December 2017
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — December 2017 — 98-Ind-B4, Design of Information Systems. 3 hours; closed book, no calculator permitted. The exam comprises four parts: Part A (select 20 terms from the list given and explain each in a sentence or two, no more than 50 words, 2 marks each = 40 marks), Parts B and C (select 2 of 5 questions in each part, 11 marks each = 22 marks per part), and Part D (select 1 of 2 questions, 16 marks). Complete answers to every term and every question in all four parts follow below, not only the minimum selection a candidate would submit on exam day.
Reference texts: Laudon & Laudon, Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm, 15th ed.; Schwalbe, Information Technology Project Management, 9th ed.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
Connects devices within one building or campus over a small geographic area, typically owned entirely by the organization. Components: network interface cards, switches, cabling (twisted-pair, fibre) or Wi-Fi access points, and a local firewall/router at the network's edge. Providers: generally none — the organization owns and operates its own LAN hardware. Technologies/standards: Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) for wired connections, Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) for wireless, and TCP/IP (Question 1) as the underlying addressing/routing protocol suite.
Connects geographically dispersed LANs — separate offices, plants, or data centres, potentially spanning cities, provinces, or countries — into one corporate network. Components: WAN routers, dedicated leased-line or MPLS circuits, and increasingly SD-WAN appliances that route traffic dynamically across multiple underlying links (broadband, LTE/5G, leased line) for cost and resilience. Providers: a telecommunications carrier (e.g., Bell, Telus, AT&T) supplies the physical long-haul circuit or MPLS service connecting sites. Technologies/standards: MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching), leased T1/T3 or fibre circuits, and SD-WAN overlay protocols.
Extends a private corporate network securely over public internet infrastructure, most commonly to connect remote/mobile employees or a branch office to headquarters without a dedicated leased circuit. Components: VPN client software or a VPN-capable router/firewall at each endpoint, and a VPN concentrator/gateway at the corporate edge. Providers: the organization's own internet service provider carries the underlying traffic; the VPN itself (the encryption/tunnelling) is typically self-operated corporate infrastructure rather than purchased as a managed service, though managed VPN services also exist. Technologies/standards: IPsec and SSL/TLS tunnelling protocols, which encrypt traffic end-to-end so it is unreadable even though it traverses shared public infrastructure.
Connects the corporate network to the public internet, and hosts any public-facing services (e.g., the corporate website, an externally reachable API). Components: an edge router, a firewall pair separating the internet, the demilitarized zone (DMZ), and the internal network, and the public-facing servers themselves sit inside the DMZ so a breach there does not directly expose the internal network. Providers: an internet service provider (ISP) supplies the connection itself; a Content Delivery Network (CDN) provider is often layered on top to serve public content from edge locations near end users. Technologies/standards: TCP/IP, HTTP/HTTPS, DNS.
Provides mobile connectivity for employee devices, either on-premises (Wi-Fi) or off-premises (cellular data). Components: wireless access points and a wireless controller for on-premises Wi-Fi; for cellular, the device's own modem/SIM connecting to the carrier's tower infrastructure, with no corporate-owned hardware beyond the mobile-device-management platform. Providers: mobile network operators (e.g., Rogers, Bell, Telus) supply cellular data service. Technologies/standards: IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) on-premises; LTE/5G cellular standards off-premises.
