CST 311 - Week 1

 This week we read over Chapter 1: Computer Networks and the Internet. This chapter covered what makes up the internet from two perspectives: nuts-and-bolts and  as a service. The nuts-and-bolts description of the internet considers the actual hardware and software that makes up the internet, where the alternative considers the internet as a network infrastructure that provides services to applications. We took a brief look at protocols, which define the order and format of messages exchanged between two communicating entities. Between the reading and the problem set, we looked at delays and throughputs and how to calculate them. The equations are simple enough, but remembering how things are related is something I need to look over again. For the lab, we got our virtual machine environment set up and began learning how to set up a simple "network" of our own. We also were introduced to Wireshark, which is a network protocol analyzer that lets you look at traffic in real-time. This was especially interesting to me as you don't really think about how much is going on on your computer at any given time.