There are many communication protocols that are used in Riordan Manufacturing Company. Communication protocols are useful in the networking world. They are the standards that are used to manage communications in the networks. They form the basis under which connections and interfaces communicate. The various branches that are seen in the company are reason enough to have protocols that will help in having a unified communication model. Communication protocols help to make common technologies that will make two hosts to communicate. Protocol is the specific rules and electric signal that the network system use. The protocol controls the communication of the network components such as physical topology, cables required and the bandwidth. The main network protocols that are mostly implemented are the Ethernet, Local Talk, Token ring, FDDI, ATM (Kenneth, 2008).
Albany GA network diagram has Ethernet protocols which are used in the network. The widely used protocol is the Ethernet that applies Carrier Sense Multiple Access/collision
Detection (CSMA/CD) access method. In this, the computer detects whether there is a signal on the transmission line. If there is none, it sends its signal. If there is an electric signal in the transmission medium, the computer waits till it reaches the destination then it sends. This kind of protocol has the advantage of transmitting the data through wireless access points, coaxial, twisted pair, and optic cables at speeds ranging from 10-1000 Mbps and works best in star and star network setup. There is a higher standard of Ethernet called Fast Ethernet that has been developed that has a speed of 100 Mbps. Its drawback is that it uses darned expensive hubs and NICs. Moreover, it requires category 5 twisted pair or optic cables that are expensive (Alfandi, & Bochem, 2011).
There are various technologies which are used in Riordan Manufacturing. Local Talk is a technology that has been used in the company. The other protocol is the local talk that uses a technology that is almost like that used by Ethernet called carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA). Apple computer technologist developed this network protocol. The only difference of CSMA/CA from CSMA/CD the computer sends a message to the recipient computer before sending the signal. The disadvantage with this protocol is its speed. It transmits a maximum of 230 Kbps (Flammini, 2012).
\With the wide networks in Riordan and the distributed connections, here is the use of token passing in the connection. Various bramches use this technology to have a connection. Another protocol is Token ring whose method of access is token passing. The connection is done in a manner that it enables the movement of signals around the computer network in a logical ring. Its speed ranges from 4-16 Mbps.
There is also FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data interface) protocol that is used mainly in the interconnection of a number of local area networks. It also uses token passing as an access. It uses a dual ring physical topology where the signal passes on one ring and in case of breakage on that ring the data is transmitted through the secondary ring in the opposite direction. It has the advantage over the others because it works in the fiber optic cable and its speed is 100 Mbps (Flammini, 2012).
Lastly is Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) that has a transmission speed of at least 155 Mbps. Its mode of transmission is in the form of small fixed packets. It is the only protocol that supports media varieties.
Out of all these protocols, Ethernet protocols are the most suitable for Riordan Manufacturing Company. The information that is communicated between computers in a different section of the premise like the cash tables, the store, the manager's computer and others needs to have a relatively higher speed. In addition, it uses twisted pair and coaxial cables that are available and cheaper and also enables the use of laptops since enables wireless access (Flammini, 2012).
Network architecture
Riordan Manufacturing uses client-server architecture. There is a central server room where all servers such as databases, server, application server and web server will be kept. Peer-to-peer is not appropriate because they apply where all computers are in the same flat form.
The business’s network architecture
In terms of security, Riordan Manufacturing client-server network serves the intended purpose as far as prevention of intrusion that can lead to attacks. There are two fundamental ways of ensuring network security. The primary way of ensuring the physical security by making sure that the laid down network devices are protected from any threat such as theft. Physical security is crucial since the breakdown in the physical network setup leads to denial of service. Ensuring the logical security of the organization’s network components is secured is a critical factor. This is by using VPNs and secure sockets layers to ensure data confidentiality, integrity and non-repudiation (Acquisti, & Sadeghi, 2010).
Use of a firewall is also necessary because there is some information that are supposed to be filtered. For example, some information should fall in the hands of executive management only, therefore, the information that the other employees get should be filtered. In addition, all computers have the latest anti-viruses to deal with upcoming viruses.
Latency is the duration it takes for some data to reach the end. Latency is another cause of communication unreliability in a sensor network. Node processing, network congestion and multi-hop routing can increase the network latency. This will complicate the synchronization process of the sensor nodes. One of the prevailing security challenges is node synchronization issues, especially when the security mechanism entirely depends on cryptographic key distribution and critical event reports.
References
Acquisti, A., & Sadeghi, A. -R. (2010). Trust and trustworthy computing: Third international conference. Springer.
Alfandi, O., & Bochem, A. (2011). Critical infrastructure protection improving information sharing with infrastructure sectors. DIANE Publishing.
Flammini, F. (2012). Critical infrastructure security: Assessment, prevention, detection, response. WIT Press.
