IT e-Magazine Issue 5, March 2015
The growth of Information Technology has been phenomenal since the middle of the 21 century. It has affected all aspects of life in one way or another. So the objective of this magazine, which released by the department of Information Technology – Lebanese French University (LFU), is to disseminate information on the application of IT and to be a platform for discussing its benefits and its impact on society. We welcome articles that cover and analyze the benefits and impacts of IT applications on the society and which elaborate on their implementation issues. The criteria for selecting articles for the magazine include: the subject area of the article; new ideas about applications and implementation techniques; how well the information is presented; level of interest to other readers; and, the importance to the IT community. All articles will be subject to a reviewing procedure. Hopefully, contributions to this magazine will 'enhance readability for the general IT reader' and 'help direct society towards a more beneficial use of IT'. Editorial Committee item @ lfu-erbil . net
1975, Microsoft ® was began as a software company
Million+ Apps
by 'Bill Gates' and 'Paul Allen' in Albuquerque. The current best-selling products for Microsoft are the Microsoft Windows operating system, Microsoft Office suite of productivity software, Xbox a line of entertainment of games, music and video and Bing, a line of search engine. The name "Microsoft" is a portmanteau of words microcomputer and software.
To date, Over 1300000 apps officially available on the Google Play Store
Facebook’s First User The first user at the Facebook was Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook’s first user actually holds the user ID number four (the first three accounts having been blocked off for testing). Within twenty-four hours, Facebook has more than hundred and fifteen hundred registrants. You can check the other first facebook's users by replace # with a number in the following address (www.facebook.com/#).
People who changed the Internet Father of the Web The Father of Web (WWW) 'Tim Berners-Lee' invented the World Wide Web. He wrote the first web client and server and designed a way to create links, or hypertext, amid different pieces of online information. He now maintains standards for the web and continues to refine its design as a director of the W3C. ITeM Website: http://www.lfu-erbil.net/item
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE
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Academic Plagiarism Mazin S AlHakeem
The issue of plagiarism is becoming more and more prevalent, and some fields, particularly in academia. Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" of an ideas, thoughts, expressions or works from another author(s) and represent it as one's own original work. In simply it’s a "stealing and publication". Plagiarism “is not a crime per se”, but the plagiarism by students, reporters, professors, or researchers “is considered academic dishonesty and serious ethical offense”, and it is a subject to sanctions (for examples: penalties, suspension, and even expulsion). Who can read this article: Researcher, Reporter, Educators and Students
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Drupal Content Management System Ahmed Abduladheem Abdulwahid
Drupal is one of the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) these days. It is an open source Content Management System, and it is free. Drupal system is used for several kinds of purpose of contents, and it presents a service for the people and the companies to publish, organize, and manage their work without higher knowledge of the programming (Douglass, Little, & Smith, 2006). Who can read this article: Web Designers, Web Developers, & CS lecturers
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E-learning, Online Learning and Distance Learning: Are they the same? Harith Abdullah
E-learning, Web-based learning, online learning, and distance learning are widely used as interchangeable terms. However, these terms represent concepts with subtle, yet consequential differences. In this article, we reveal the differences, review the meanings of these terms, and suggest definitions. Who can read this article: Educational and Training Communities
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Ethical Hackers Mohammad Salim
Undoubtedly, since you know about hackers, you also want to know about ethical hackers. For making you aware of ethical hacking concept, this article will answer three important questions, "who is an ethical hacker?", "what the importance of ethical hacking is?", and finally "how to become an ethical hacker?". Who can read this article: IT Lecturers, IT Students and anyone interested in IT field
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NFC and its Applications Yahya Tariq Hussaen
Near Field Communication (NFC) system is designed from the collaboration of many technologies like wireless communications, mobile devices, mobile applications, and smart card technology and cloud services. NFC is a short-range wireless connectivity standard that uses magnetic field induction to enable smartphones and other devices to establish radio communication with each other when they're touched together, or bringing them into proximity, typically a distance of 4 cm or less. Based on RFID technology, NFC provides a medium for the identification protocols that validate secure data transfer. Developed by Philips and Sony. Who can read this article: General Smartphone Users
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OneNote in Education: An Effective Way to Enhance Approaches of Teaching Ihsan Sayyid Salman
and Learning in Classroom Last year, Microsoft Company has been developed a new powerful teaching and learning tool which known as OneNote Class Notebook Creator. It can be defined as a digital platform that enable educators to build electronic classroom through creating notebooks to share their training materials effectively with the rest of their classmates. Additionally, it helps teachers to monitor interaction of each student through using various activities in the class such as sharing digital handouts, take notes easily and fast synchronisation on pages. This essay will highlight the ways and benefits of using OneNote in education. Who can read this article: IT, Educational
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Port Channel Technology: Advantages and Uses Ali Rabee
A trunk is a physical path or link in a communications system that is designed to handle many transmissions simultaneously and that interconnects major switching centers or nodes. Depending on the system, a trunk may carry transmissions in analog or digital form. Transmission content may include voice (as in the conventional telephone system), text, computer programs, images, and video or control signals. Who can read this article: Network Administrator , IT
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Academic Plagiarism Mazin S. Al-Hakeem (Ph.D) Department of Information Technology, Lebanese French University - Erbil dr.mazin@lfu-erbil.net Introduction The issue of plagiarism is becoming more and more prevalent, and some fields, particularly in academia. Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" of an ideas, thoughts, expressions or works from another author(s) and represent it as one's own original work. In simply it’s a "stealing and publication". Plagiarism “is not a crime per se”, but the plagiarism by students, reporters, professors, or researchers “is considered academic dishonesty and serious ethical offense”, and it is a subject to sanctions (for examples: penalties, suspension, and even expulsion). "The use of ideas, concepts, words, or structures without include quotations or appropriately acknowledging or citation to the sources or the references unintentionally" is also plagiarism. “One form of academic plagiarism involves appropriating a published article and modifying it slightly to avoid suspicion”. Preventing Plagiarism In academia, we have to come up with original ideas and at the same time making reference to other works. If change some of what an author said ("restatement in own words of someone else's ideas"), do we still have to cite that author? The confusion about the answers to these questions often leads to plagiarism.
And actually, the other sources support own ideas. “Not all sources are worth citing-- in fact, many of them are just plain wrong”. Plagiarism Detection Lots of people have impressions about detection tools like (Turnitin, writecheck, etc.). Unfortunately, many of these impressions are based on misconceptions, because they are not for plagiarism detector? These tools does not detect plagiarism per se; It is a first step to plagiarism detection … The originality reports of these tools are simply tools to help us to find sources that contain similar to base on them databases. The originality report do not reflect the assessment of whether a work has or has not been plagiarized. It is important to realize that the similarity is not a plagiarism – there is no score that is inherently "good” or "bad”. So, the important next step for plagiarism detection is depth examination of both the work and suspect sources in accordance with the standards of the university or institute. Conclusion If we make the effort to not plagiarize, we will be safe, we’ll learn more, and we will be following the ethical path. References 1. Bela Gipp, Citation-based Plagiarism Detection: Detecting Disguised and Cross-language Plagiarism using
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5 Citation Pattern Analysis, Springer, ISBN 978-3-658-06393-1, 2014. 2. en.writecheck.com . 3. Oxford English Dictionary.
4. www.turnitin.com . 5. www.ithenticate.com . 6. www.plagiarism.org
Drupal Content Management System Ahmed Abduladheem Abdulwahid (MSc) Department of Computer Science, University of Central Missouri – USA ahmed_z_1987@yahoo.com Introduction Drupal is one of the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) these days. It is an open source Content Management System, and it is free. Drupal system is used for several kinds of purpose of contents, and it presents a service for the people and the companies to publish, organize, and manage their work without higher knowledge of the programming (Douglass, Little, & Smith, 2006). Moreover, the concept of Drupal is a deeper concept than simply software. Drupal is a content management system that has great features that allow for each developer or programmer to use it with less time, money, and effort (Byron, & Berry, 2012).
The Reasons for Choosing Drupal There are several reasons that make the developer choose Drupal system:
Drupal can operate with ease or complex websites with a variety of contents . It works with a variety of operating system such as Windows، Linux، and Mac (Quadri, 2011). Drupal has a big community that provides some important services such as the security and testing documentation for the system, as well as support for different kinds of languages (Patel, Rathod, & Parikh, 2011). It has a huge number of themes and modules that allow any developer to feel very comfortable choosing an appropriate theme or module. According to the official website of Drupal: https://drupal.org/, there are more than 26,359 modules and 1,978 themes. The ability of updating the content with Drupal system is very flexible, easy, and reliable .
The Drupal System Requirements Drupal content management system contains four parts: language, database, webserver, and operating system (Quadri, 2011) as shown in the next Figure.
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References 1. Douglass, R. T., Little, M., & Smith, J. W. (2006). Building online communities with Drupal ,phpBB, and WordPress. Apress.
2. Byron, A., Berry, A., Haug, N., Eaton, J., Walker, J., & Robbins, J. (2012).Using Drupal .‘O’Reilly Media, Inc. 3. Quadri, S. A. (2011). Developing, Managing and Maintaining Web Applications with Content Management Systems: Drupal and Joomla as case study. 4. Patel, S. K., Rathod, V. R., & Parikh, S. (2011, December). Joomla, Drupal and WordPress-a statistical comparison of open source CMS. In Trends in Information Sciences and Computing (TISC), 2011 3rd International Conference on (pp. 182-187). IEEE.
E-learning, Online Learning and Distance Learning: Are they the same? Harith A. Hussein (MSc) Department of Information Technology, Lebanese French University - Erbil harith_abd1981@lfu-erbil.net Introduction E-learning, Web-based learning, online learning, and distance learning are widely used as interchangeable terms. However, these terms represent concepts with subtle, yet consequential differences. In this article, we reveal the differences, review the meanings of these terms, and suggest definitions. [1] A clear understanding of these concepts and their fundamental differences is important for both the educational and training communities. A thorough familiarity with each concept and its distinctive characteristics is a critical factor in establishing adequate specifications, evaluating alternative options, selecting best solutions, and enabling and promoting effective learning practices. [2]
Definitions of terms E-learning is mostly associated with activities involving computers and interactive networks simultaneously. The computer does not need to be the central element of the activity or provide learning content. However, the computer and the network must hold a significant involvement in the learning activity. To apply e-learning normally, we use Learning Management System (LMS) for distributing online or blended/hybrid college courses over the Internet with features for online collaboration. Learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of electronic educational technology education courses or training programs. The most
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7 popular used software's are moodel as an open-source system and Blackbord as commercial product. [3] Online learning is associated with content readily accessible on a computer. The content may be on the Web or the Internet, or simply installed on a CD-ROM or the computer hard disk.[2] Distance learning involves interaction at a distance between instructor and learners, and enables timely instructor reaction to learners. Simply posting or broadcasting learning materials to learners is not distance learning. Instructors must be involved in receiving feedback from learners.[1] Though e-learning, Web-based learning, and distance learning are all related to
each other, they have significant differences. Failing to recognize the fine differences between these concepts limits the pace of development of expertise, precludes precise communication with team members and stakeholders, and often reflects a poor understanding of available alternative solutions. References 1. Joi L. Moore a., Camille DicksonDeane b. and Krista, G. (2011), eLearning, online learning, and distance learning environments. 2. Susanna, T. and Paulo. (2013) Elearning, Online Learning, Webbased Learning, or Distance Learning. 3. Ellis, Ryann K. (2009), Field Guide to Learning Management Systems, ASTD Learning Circuits
Ethical Hackers Mohammad Salim Abdulrahman (MSc) Department of Information Technology, Lebanese French University - Erbil mohammads@lfu-erbil.net Introduction Undoubtedly, since you know about hackers, you also want to know about ethical hackers. For making you aware of ethical hacking concept, this article will answer three important questions, "who is an ethical hacker?", "what the importance of ethical hacking is?", and finally "how to become an ethical hacker?". Ethical Hacker An ethical hacker is a professional person in computers and networks who run many attacks on a network system with the knowledge of its owners, looking for vulnerabilities that a criminal hacker might use to check a network security
system; ethical hackers practice similar techniques to that used by criminal hackers, but report weaknesses instead of misuse them. Ethical hacking expressed by different terms such as penetration attack, intrusion testing, penetration testing and red teaming [1]. In a simple word, ethical hacker works as good people who "hack a system to discover vulnerabilities for the purpose of protecting computers against illicit entry, abuse, and misuse [2]. Importance of Ethical Hacking Ethical hacking considered as useful because of the following reasons [3] :
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8 Protection from any potential outsiders attacks such as social engineering, automated attacks, organizational attacks, unplanned gaps in security, Trojan horses, viruses, and worms and Denial of Service. Testing of networks Supports both of saving money and reputation in the end To preserve information assets. Ethical Hacking method includes several phases: preparations, foot printing, enumeration and finger printing, identification of vulnerabilities, and attack-exploit the gaps. These processes will presented in issue 5 of IT e-Magazine. Become an Ethical Hacker Ethical hackers should stay a step in advance of bad hackers; they must be networks systems specialists and very familiar with computer networking, programming, and operating systems. Comprehensive awareness regarding most under attack systems such as Windows, Unix, and Linux is considered as necessity. “Patience, persistence, and immense perseverance are important qualities for ethical hackers because of the length of time and level of concentration required for most attacks to pay off. Networking, web programming, and database skills are all useful in performing ethical hacking and vulnerability testing” [4]. According to [5] , to start your steps and become as an ethical hacker this relies on your current location in the field of IT. As a beginner, you must begin with the fundamentals: get your A+ Certification then become in a tech support position. After getting experience and more certifications (Network+ or CCNA), go up to a network support or admin role
positions, then move to network engineer after a few years. Afterward, spend part of your time in getting additional security qualifications (Security+, CISSP, or TICSA) then look for a computer security position. Whereas you are there, make your focus on penetration testing to acquire some of the necessary experience with the tools of the trade. At that time, try to get the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) certificate, which given by the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants (EC-Council). After done of the previous accomplishments, you will probably be able to find your job and working an ethical hacker. For a hacker, networking knowledge is crucial; however, ensure that you get experience in related areas also. Learn and engage with Unix/Linux commands. Take care of learning some programming languages such as C, LISP, Perl, or Java. In addition, try to learn databases such as SQL. References [1] A. A. Farsole, A. G. Kashikar and a. A. Zunzunwala, "Ethical Hacking," International Journal of Computer Applications, vol. 1, no. 10, pp. 14-20, 2010. [2] K. Beaver, Hacking for Dummies., Wiley, 2004. [3] P. Sheoran and S. Singh, "Applications of Ethical Hacking," International Journal of Enhanced Research in Science Technology & Engineering, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 112114, 2014. [4] K. Graves, Official Certified Ethical Hacker Review Guide: Exam, John Wiley & Sons, 2007. [5]
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E. Geier, "How to Become an Ethical Hacker," PCWorld, 2012.
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Near Field Communication NFC and its Applications Yahya Tareq Hussein (PhD) Department of Information Technology, Lebanese French University - Erbil dr.yahya@lfu-erbil.net Introduction Near Field Communication (NFC) system is designed from the collaboration of many technologies like wireless communications, mobile devices, mobile applications, and smart card technology and cloud services. NFC is a short-range wireless connectivity standard that uses magnetic field induction to enable smartphones and other devices to establish radio communication with each other when they're touched together, or bringing them into proximity, typically a distance of 4 cm or less. Based on RFID technology, NFC provides a medium for the identification protocols that validate secure data transfer. Developed by Philips and Sony. How it works NFC allows for a simple data exchange between two devices by a way of physical touch. NFC requires an initiator and a target, the initiator produces a radio frequency (RF) field within a range of 4cm. The target picks up the RF field and receives the data it contains. NFC can operate in three modes
The reader/writer mode enables NFC enabled devices to exchange data with NFC tags. The Peer-to-Peer mode enables two NFC enabled mobile devices to exchange data. The card emulation mode, the NFC enabled mobile device acts as a smart card or contactless card.
There are three smart devices use NFC technology NFC Tags NFC tags are a small device which is cheap and require no power. They can store up to 4KB of data which can be read by active NFC devices. They share information interactively, similar to QR code. NFC in Mobile Device The smartphone are able to make payment transfer data between tow phones. Credit card, bus pass and train ticket have gone digital. All will be accessible through your phone. Google Wallet released in 2011, it was NFC's biggest push, allowing Android users to pay using NFC technology. Apple Pay released in October 2014, allowing iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users to pay using NFC at participating retailers. NFC Reader This is capable of transferring data to another component. The example for this is contactless point of sale (POS) terminal.
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01 performed by the NFC enabled mobile phones. NFC can be well adapted for all kinds of situations ranging from bank cards to transit passes, movie passes, reward systems and even keys. NFC will also impact a wide spectrum of enterprises like transportation, healthcare, telecom and etc. References
Applications of NFC Mobile and contactless payment: Make payment using NFC credit card or use smart phone. To do so, just touch your card or phone on the reader at the checkout. Advertising: Get all the information you need by tapping on advertising board. File sharing: User can share contact details or sending file using NFC. Device pairing: User is able to pair with the device just by touching them. Conclusion
1. Durga Priya, E.Ramakotaiah, a Short Range Wireless Communication Using Android NFC API, (IOSR-JCE), Issue 2, Ver. V (Mar-Apr. 2014). 2. Jamie Carter, Cameron Faulkner, What is NFC and why is it in your phone? Available at: http://www.techradar.com/news/ph one-and-communications/what-isnfc-and-why-is-it-in-your-phone948410 (Accessed: November 20, 2014). 3. Technology Reporter: What Is NFC, and Why Does It Matter for the iPhone 6?. Available at: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/whatis-nfc-and-why-does-it-matter-forthe-iphone-6-96456683964.html. (Accessed: September 3, 2014).
Many services today like ticketing, payment, tracking and etc. can be
OneNote in Education: An Effective Way to Enhance Approaches of Teaching and Learning in Classroom
Ihsan Sayyid Salman Department of Computer Science and Digital Technologies, Northumbria University, Newcastle – UK ihsan.rukaibawi@northumbria.ac.uk Introduction Last year, Microsoft Company has been developed a new powerful teaching and learning tool which known as OneNote Class Notebook Creator. It can be defined as a digital platform that enable educators to build electronic classroom through creating notebooks to share their training materials effectively
with the rest of their classmates. Additionally, it helps teachers to monitor interaction of each student through using various activities in the class such as sharing digital handouts, take notes easily and fast synchronisation on pages. This essay will highlight the ways and benefits of using OneNote in education.
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00 The ways of using OneNote in education OneNote Class Notebook Creator is a flexible framework that includes three sections as shown in a below figure. The first one is student notebooks that allow educators for creating private student notebooks.
Conclusion In conclusion, OneNote Class Notebook Creator is becoming one of powerful tools for helping teachers or students to enhance their traditional approaches of teaching or learning in terms of flexibility to use on any devices, observe the engagement of students and collaborate creatively with each other. References Moxon, S. (2014) OneNote Class Notebook
Creator:
Making
Collaboration between Students and The second one is content library which helps educators to upload or updated their course materials and deliver them to the learners and the last one is collaboration space which enables both educators and learners to organize, share and collaborate in one place. The
benefits
of
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Teachers
at:
/2014/10/16/onenote-class-notebookcreator-available-today.aspx (Accessed: 07 March 2015).
Frank, B. H. (2014) New OneNote Tool lets Teachers Manage Microsoft's
in
OneNote is a convenient way for studying and learning on any device anywhere at any time. OneNote is an interactive way for accessing to a digital repository of knowledge and information such as academic materials, libraries and assignments or exams. OneNote is a collaborative way for encouraging students to study and work as group. OneNote helps students to edits their notes together in real time wherever they are in the same class or in different place. OneNote enable both students and teachers to exchange their feedback automatically in one place virtually anytime, anywhere.
Available
http://blogs.technet.com/b/nzedu/archive
Note
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in
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the at:
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/newonenote-tool-lets-teachers-managemicrosofts-note-taking-softwareclassroom/
(Accessed:
07
March
2015).
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OneNote
(2014)
Introduction
OneNote Class Notebooks: A Flexible Digital Framework for Teaching and Learning.
Available
at:
http://blogs.office.com/2014/10/07/introd ucing-onenote-class-notebooks-flexibledigital-framework-teaching-learning/ (Accessed: 07 March 2015).
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Port Channel Technology: Advantages and Uses Ali R. Hashim (MSc) Department of Information Technology, Lebanese French University - Erbil alirh@lfu-erbil.net Introduction A trunk is a physical path or link in a communications system that is designed to handle many transmissions simultaneously and that interconnects major switching centers or nodes. Depending on the system, a trunk may carry transmissions in analog or digital form. Transmission content may include voice (as in the conventional telephone system), text, computer programs, images, and video or control signals. [1] Trunk Technology In Cisco networks, trunking is a special function that can be assigned to a port, making that port capable of carrying traffic for any or all of the virtual LANs (VLANs) accessible by a particular switch. Such a port is called a trunk port, in contrast to an access port, which carries traffic only to and from the specific VLAN assigned to it. A trunk port marks frames with special identifying tags as they pass between switches, so each frame can be routed to its intended VLAN. An access port does not provide such tags, because the VLAN for it is pre-assigned, and identifying markers are therefore unnecessary.[2] Trunking, also known as VLAN trunking, enables interconnected ports to transmit and receive frames in more than one VLAN, over the same physical link. Trunking and port channels function as follows:
Port channels enable several physical links to be combined into one aggregated logical link. Trunking enables a link to carry (trunk) multiple VLAN traffic.[1]
Ether-Channel (Port- channel) Ether-Channel or (port- channel) is a port link aggregation technology used primarily on Cisco switches. It allows grouping of several physical Ethernet links to create one logical Ethernet link for the purpose of providing fault tolerance and high speed links between switches, routers and servers. An Ether-Channel can be Ether-Channel between a switch and a server. Created from between two to eight active Fast, Gigabit or 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports. Ether-Channel is primarily used in the backbone network, but can also be used to connect end user machines. [1]
A port channel performs the following functions: Increases the aggregate bandwidth on a link by distributing traffic among all functional links in the channel.
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Load balances across multiple links and maintains optimum bandwidth usage. Provides high availability. If one link fails, traffic previously carried on this link is switched to the remaining links. If a link goes down in a port channel, the upper protocol is not aware of it. To the upper protocol, the link is still there, although the bandwidth is diminished. The MAC address tables are not affected by link failure.[2]
References 1. The free encyclopedia Wikipedia, "Ether-Channel" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EtherCh annel. 2. Cisco Systems, Inc., Americas Headquarters, "Cisco Nexus 1000V Troubleshooting Guide", Release 4.0(4) SV1 (3), October 30, 2010.
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Readers of IT e-magazine are invited to submit their articles that are consistent with the objective of this magazine for publishing in the future issues, to ITeM’s editorial committee at : item@lfu-erbil.net . Deadlines: - Submissions due: 8th of the Month - Author notification: 10th of the Month - Publish date: 15th of the Month
This issue powered by Turnitin to enforce the high level of originality.
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