Course Options:

Level 4 - 6 by 20 Credit Modules

CMP450: Research Skills Development

The ability to undertake effective research and utilise your findings is essential in both the academic world and the computing industry.   Effective students must be able to research and synthesise information from a variety of sources, to supplement the information delivered on their courses. Effective employees must be capable of updating their skills through independent research and the study of new techniques and theories. 

The industry also requires potential staff to have the ability to communicate information, arguments and ideas effectively, using appropriate oral, visual and written communication skills. This module enables students to undertake effective research on a range of topics, analyse data, develop information and use appropriate formats for presentation.

 This module also assists students in developing the referencing skills and techniques which are vital for academic communication.   

CMP451 - Network Principles        

This module introduces the architecture, structure, functions, components and models of the Internet and other computer networks.  It uses the OSI and TCP/IP layered models to examine the nature and roles of protocols and services at the application, network, data link and physical layers.  The principles and structure of IP addressing and the fundamentals of Ethernet concepts, media and operators are introduced to provide a foundation for later modules.  Practical experiments will help learners analyse protocol and network operation and build small networks in a simulated environment.  At the end of the course, learners build simple LAN topologies by applying basic principles of cabling; performing basic configurations of network devices, including routers and switches; and implementing network addressing schemes.

CMP452 – Routing Concepts & Protocols

This module describes the architecture, components, and operation of routers before explaining the principles of routing and routing protocols.  Learners are to analyse, configure, verify and troubleshoot the primary routing protocols RIPv1, RIPv2, EIGRP and OSPF.  By the end of this course, learners will be able to recognise and correct common routing issues and problems. 

Each learning outcome is reinforced through practical activities that take the student through a basic procedural lab before introducing basic configurations, routing implementation and troubleshooting.  Further practical activities reinforce new concepts, and allow students to model and analyse routing processes that may be difficult to visualise and understand when taught through a purely theoretical approach.

CMP453 – LAN Switching and Wireless

This module offers a comprehensive, theoretical and practical approach to learning the technologies and protocols needed to design and implement a converged switched network and to provide enterprise-level infrastructures.  Learners will gain knowledge and experience of the hierarchical network design model and how to select devices for each layer. 

The module explains how to configure a switch for basic functionality and how to implement Virtual LANs, VTP and inter-VLAN routing in a converged network.  The different implementations of the spanning tree protocol and its uses within a converged network are presented and discussed.  Finally, learners study the underlying concepts behind wireless LAN technologies, allowing them to build up the knowledge and skills necessary to implement a wireless LAN in a small to medium network.

CMP454- Operating Systems and Computer Architecture

This module aims to provide students with the fundamentals of modern hardware design, specifically processors, memory and hard disks and how they are utilised by modern operating systems.

The Operating Systems & Computer Architecture module therefore will look at the architectures of computing systems, their technologies and interrelationships. Students will analyse the differences between RISC and CISC processor architectures and will be introduced to the concepts of digital logic, including Boolean algebra and simplification laws, Karnaugh maps and simple digital circuit design.  Students will also look at different benchmarking techniques and will use performance metric calculations to allow effective judgments to be made upon system performance.  Students will also gain an understanding of components of operating systems including memory management, concurrency, paging and scheduling. IO concepts will also be covered including interrupt driven, programmed and memory mapped IO. This module will serve those students that intend to be employed in specifying or managing computer systems, programmers, analysts and system engineers. 

CMP455 - Systems Management

The primary role of a systems administrator is the management of servers and their clients, ensuring that they meet service level agreements for internal clients. Understanding the foundations of service provision and the underlying dependencies, performance analysis how these roles are created with respect to the provision they will be required to provide and their underlying services is the essence of this module.

Level 5 - 6 by 20 Credit Modules

CMP550 Work Placement/Professional Development

 Learners will develop professional capabilities through the consideration of ethical and legal issues, the construction of a continuing personal development record and the completion of a work placement.  This unit will focus on increasing learners’ employability; the learners will develop professional competencies by undertaking a range of activities during the work placement experience, as well as preparing a professional CV and development record. 

 Learners will gain understanding of the continuous nature of professional development in IT related industries, including the importance of independent study for updating skills and enhancing career progression. They will also have the opportunity to begin developing a network of industry contacts through the completion of the work placement. The learners will examine professional bodies and ethics, as well as some of the main pieces of UK legislation affecting industry. 

CMP551: Project Management

This module will introduce the learner to the tools and techniques used by Project Managers for computing related projects. Students will investigate the processes involved in project management, the roles and responsibilities of the team, the phases of the project lifecycle, and scheduling and budgeting techniques.

Learners will investigate issues that impact on Project Management, such as planning and scheduling, change and risk monitoring, and project team management.  The module will develop learners’ skills in using the tools and techniques involved in successful project planning and control and introduce them to Project Management software packages.

The knowledge obtained during the study of this module will equip learners with a wide range of transferable skills that will allow them to become an effective member of a project team, or manage and co-ordinate a small scale project.

CMP552 - Systems Security

Since computers became engrained within society, they have drastically increased the effectiveness and efficiency of both industry and commerce.  As society becomes more dependent on sophisticated computers and communication technology, the probability of something occurring that could result in the loss of valuable data increases

If an event like this occurs then organisations could find themselves filing for bankruptcy.  It is due to this importance that is now placed on data they store that organisations have placed with equal measures; if not more importance on the ability to actually protect their data.

Topics to be covered are: Attack Modelling (attack trees), threats to network security (unauthorised access, malicious programs), counter measures, penetration testing of implemented security precautions (vulnerability scanning, system breaching), and approaches to evaluating network security practices

 CMP553 - Data Management          

 IT systems and the data they contain are increasingly important to an organisations operation and it is necessary to have ways of securely storing and recovering data.  It is important to have disaster recovery strategies in place in order to take over should the worst happen. ‘Disaster’ will mean different things for different organisations, so it is important that students are able to define what it means for a particular organisation. 

The aim of this module is to develop, within the learner, understanding of the various network technologies to manage, maintain and preserve the data contained within a network. This module considers the roles of IT and server management in the provision of data storage from hardware, redundancy, warehousing, access, security and legal ramifications.

 CMP554 – Enterprise Network Technologies

 This module addresses a range of WAN technologies and network services required by converged applications within enterprise networks.  The module uses standard design principles to introduce integrated network services before explaining the method involved in the selection of appropriate devices and technologies to meet enterprise network requirements. 

 Students learn how to implement and configure common WAN data link protocols (P2P, Frame Relay, HDLC etc) as well as the process involved in applying WAN security concepts.  Principles of traffic and access control are also discussed along with developments in the field of addressing services.  Finally, students learn how to detect, troubleshoot, and correct common enterprise network implementation issues.

 CMP555 – Virtualisation and Cloud Computing

 This module offers a comprehensive, theoretical and practical approach to providing learners with an understanding of the principles of virtualisation via the deployment of virtual server and desktop environments.  This module will look at a broad range of solutions from desktop to medium-size Enterprise-server and will offer understanding of the differences in virtualisation and cloud solutions.

 Students will be introduced to the current technologies offerings by the largest virtual infrastructure providers (VMWare, Microsoft and Citrix), students will also be expected to explore the use of virtual networks, why they exist and what benefits can they offer and also why organisations are looking to consolidated server infrastructures and also consolidated storage frameworks.

Students will be expected to explore and evaluate consolidated server frameworks from online/cloud providers such as Amazon EC3 and others and why organisations are looking at offsite server virtualization and to indentify what place it has in modern networks.