Problem
Choose 3 topics to answer in a short paragraph and reference.
1) Discuss the functions of the Central Controller and more specifically its Contention Resolution Unit and Congestion Controller. Provide examples from the textbook and other sources when discuss the Central Controller capabilities.
2) Discuss and compare the key factors for characterizing switching systems: buffering, complexity, capability of multipoint connections, speed, performance cost, reliability, fault tolerance, and scalability. Review the issues with complexity of Switch Fabrics and discuss some practical methods can be used to improve the performance of switch fabrics?
3) Discuss the specifics of Integrated Services approach for Quality of Services and compare them with the Differentiated Services of QoS, how they differ and what they have in common?
4) Review and discuss the Packet Scheduling mechanisms utilized for managing packets in queues - provide examples of different type of schedulers and how we should select which one to be used.
5) Discuss the tunneling mechanism and its two main forms: remote-access tunneling and site-to-site tunneling.
6) Review and discuss how MPLS improves the overall performance of traditional IP routing? Provide examples from the text or other sources related to tunneling and MPLS as mechanisms to manage remote security communications.