Applied Data Structures, Essay Example

There are two main types of data structures, linear and non-linear (Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, & Stein 2001). Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Linear data structures store information sequentially (Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, & Stein 2001). Because they are sequential, the data can only be accessed one piece at a time in reverse order of how it was stored. This can be cumbersome, but linear data structures do not take up much memory to store (Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, & Stein 2001). That is one advantage of linear data-structures. Non-linear data structures are more complex. They can be represented as trees or graphs, and generally, included relationships between nodes (Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, & Stein 2001). The major drawback is that non-linear structures generally occupy more system resources (Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, & Stein 2001).

There are numerous applications for non-linear data structures. For this project, we are to analyze an established network with all of its complexity. We are to map multiple network users to specific workstation computers. Each user can use any computer. Thus, we implement a nonlinear data structure to represent the network. Our recommendation is the use of a graph style data structure for use in this scenario. It is the best choice based on the multiple relational connections the situation requires. A prototype diagram of the system follows.

References

Cormen, T. H., Leiserson, C. E., Rivest, R. L., & Stein, C. (2001). Introduction to Algorithms. MIT Press.