This course teaches the student the essential technologies needed by NSSA majors, focused on PC and mainframe hardware topics. They include how those platforms operate, how they are configured, and the operation of their major internal components. Also covered are the basic operating system interactions with those platforms, physical security of assets, and computing-centric mathematical concepts.

This course provides an introduction to wired network infrastructures, topologies, technologies, and the protocols required for effective end-to-end communication. Basic security concepts for TCP/IP based technologies are introduced. Networking layers 1, 2, and 3 are examined in-depth using the International Standards Organization’s Open Systems Interconnection and TCP/IP models as reference. Course topics focus on the TCP/IP protocol suite, the Ethernet LAN protocol, switching technology, and routed and routing protocols common in TCP/IP networks. The lab assignments mirror the lecture content , providing an experiential learning component for each topic covered.

This course provides students with a background in the technologies and techniques used to design, implement, and maintain a modern data center. This course will help students to see the interrelated nature of many of these topics and to gain a better understanding of the role of the following technologies in a modern data center: physical facility design, network infrastructures, power distribution, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), storage, high-availability computing, disaster recovery, and emerging data center technologies.