6.0.1.2 Vacation Station (Instructor Version – Optional Lab)
Instructor Note: Red font color or gray highlights indicate text that appears in the instructor copy only. Optional activities are designed to enhance understanding and/or to provide additional practice.
Objective
Explain the purpose of VLANs in a switched network.
To prepare for learning VLAN concepts in a switched network for this chapter, students will envision how and why network VLAN-switching groups are created.
Scenario
You have purchased a vacation home at the beach for rental purposes. There are three, identical floors on each level of the home. Each floor offers one digital television for renters to use.
According to the local Internet service provider, only three stations may be offered within a television package. It is your job to decide which television packages you offer your guests.
- Divide the class into groups of three students per group.
- Choose three different stations to make one subscription package for each floor of your rental home.
- Complete the PDF for this activity.
Share your completed group-reflection answers with the class.
Reflection
1. What were some of the criteria you used to select the final three stations?
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Answers will vary, but some answers might include: local news is usually important to everyone, weather is important to beach vacationers, home improvement might be important to rental property use, watching sports and movies are popular vacation pastimes, and history provides vacationers with information about places they are currently visiting or plan to visit.
2. Why do you think this Internet service provider offers different television station options to subscribers? Why not offer all stations to all subscribers?
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Limiting options to certain groups allows for ISPs to conserve televised bandwidth to groups with the options selected. It also allows them to charge additional prices for additional options.
3. Compare this scenario to data communications and networks for small- to medium-sized businesses. Why would it be a good idea to divide your small- to medium-sized business networks into logical and physical groups?
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Answers will vary. Some answers might include: dividing networks into groups allows businesses to: improve network performance; regulate network management and security; use data, voice, network-controlled traffic options more effectively; and group data traffic based upon network-desired functions.
Identify elements of the model that map to IT-related content:
- In this scenario, the ISPs cable modem could function as a network switch.
- Floors 1-3 could be compared to network VLAN groups.
- The digital televisions could be compared to hosts within the VLAN groups.