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Wireless LANs

Over the past few weeks I've been presenting a Wireless LAN modules.

Here's the lectures presented so far:

Unit 0 - Overview. This is a basic overview of the module. Last presented: 3 October 2007. [Notes]

Unit 1 - Introduction. Last presented: 3 October 2007. [Notes]

Unit 2 - Wireless Fundamentals. Last presented: 10 October 2007. [Notes]

Unit 3 - Wireless Infrastructure. Last presented: 17 October 2007. [Notes]

Unit 4 - Wireless Encryption. Last presented: 24 October 2007. [Notes]

and: Click here to Open the Demo in Full Screen Window of Wireless LANs

MSc Vivas

I've been involved in MSc Vivas, and one of the best of the current round is:

ASHISH TANDON
Programme: MSc in Advanced Software Engineering
Completed: Oct 2007
Grade: Merit (D1) - Distinction
PDF: Analysis and Optimization of Data Storage using Enhanced Object Models in the .NET Framework [Presentation]
Abstract:
The purpose of thesis is to benchmark the database to examine and analyze the performance using the Microsoft COM+ the most commonly used component framework heavily used for developing component based applications. The prototype application based on Microsoft Visual C#.NET language used to benchmark the database performance on Microsoft .NET Framework environment 2.0 and 3.0 using the different sizes of data range from low (100 Rows) to high volume (10000 Rows) of data with five or ten number of users connections. There are different type of application used like COM+, Non-COM+ and .NET based application to show their performance on the different volume of data with specified numbers of user on the .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0.

The result has been analyzed and collected using the performance counter variables of an operating system and used Microsoft .NET class libraries which help in collecting system’s level performance information as well. This can be beneficial to developers, stakeholders and management to decide the right technology to be used in conjunction with a database. The results and experiments conducted in this project results in the substantial gain in the performance, scalability and availability of component based application using the Microsoft COM+ features like object pooling, application pooling, role- based, transactions isolation and constructor enabled.

The outcome of this project is that Microsoft COM+ component based application provides optimized database performance results using the SQL Server. There is a performance gain of at least 10% in the COM+ based application as compared to the Non COM+ based application. COM+ services features come at the performance penalty. It has been noticed that there is a performance difference between the COM+ based application and the application based on role based security, constructor enable and transaction isolation of around 15%, 20% and 35% respectively. The COM+ based application provides performance gain of around 15% and 45% on the low and medium volume of data on a .NET Framework 2.0 in comparison to 3.0. There is a significant gain in the COM+ Server based application on .NET Framework 3.0 of around 10% using high volume of data. This depicts that high volume of data application works better with Framework 3.0 as compared to 2.0 on SQL Server.

The application performance type results represents that COM+ component based application provides better performance results over Non-COM+ and .NET based application. The difference between the performance of COM+ application based on low and medium volume of data was around 20% and 30%. .NET based application performs better on the high volume of data results in performance gain of around 10%.
Similarly more over the same results provided on the test conducted on the MS Access. Where COM+ based application running under .NET Framework 2.0 performs better result other than the Non-COM+ and .NET based application on a low and medium volume of data and .NET Framework 3.0 based COM+ application performs better results on high volume of data.

and from a previous round:

Name: Bryan Campbell
Programme: MSc in Advanced Networks
Completed: June 2007
Grade: Merit (D2) - Distinction
PDF: Automated Process of Network Documentation
Abstract:
Knowledge of network topologies is invaluable to system administrators regardless of the size of an enterprise. Yet this information is time consuming to collect, and even more so to be processed into easily consumable formats (i.e. visual maps). This is especially so when the culture within which administrators operate is more concerned with operational stability and continuity as deliverables rather than documentation and analysis. The time-cost of documentation impinges upon its own production. This continues to be the case although documentation is of increasing importance to nontechnical personnel in enterprises, and as a compliment/supplement to network management systems.

This thesis puts forth a framework to largely automate the process of documenting network topologies. The framework is based on issues raised in recent research concerning the needs of IT administrators, and network discovery methods. An application is also described serving as a proof-of-concept for the central elements of the framework. This application was realized in the Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition programming environment using the C#.NET language. The compiled result is supported by the .NET Framework 2.0 runtime environment. The application provides for an administrator to control, through a graphical interface, the sequence of discovering a network and outputting visual documentation. For testing, Cisco Systems routers and switches, along with a Microsoft Windows-based laptop, were used to construct a mock network. Measurements of the performance of the application were recorded against the mock network in order to compare it to other methods of network discovery.

Central to the application's implementation is a recognition that networks are more likely than not to be heterogeneous. That is, they will be comprised of equipment from more than a one vendor. This assumption focused the choices about the framework design and concept implementation toward open standard technologies. Namely, SNMP was selected for discovery and data gathering. XML is utilized for data storage. Data processing and document production is handled by XSL. Built around these technologies, the application successfully executed its design. It was able to query network devices and receive information from them about their configuration. It next stored that information in an XML document. Lastly, with no change to the source data, HTML and PDF documents were produced demonstrating details of the network. The work of this thesis finds that the open standard tools employed are both appropriate for, and capable of, automatically producing network documentation. Compared to some alternate tools, they are shown to be more capable in terms of speed, and more appropriate for learning about multiple layers of a network. The solution is also judged to be widely applicable to networks, and highly adaptable in the face of changing network environments. The choices of tools for the implementation were all largely foreign to the author. Apart from the prima face achievements, programming skills were significantly stretched, understanding of SNMP architecture was improved, and the basics of these XML languages was gained: XSLT, XPath, and XSL-FO.

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The supervision of a project is so much easier with a well-motivated student, who focuses on a series of achievable objectives, especially if it has a research element.