CPEN 100 - COMPUTER NETWORKS

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING

Internet. A global computer network that links computers can share information – from files,
information and people. to programs, to hardware devices or
peripherals, regardless of the physical
Computer Network a system consisting of
location of the resource and the user. With
computers and devices connected via
sharing, time, effort and money could be
communications devices and media (e.g. switches or
saved.
router) that allows users to, share resources or
2. Sharing Hardware Resources. By means of
exchange files. It is a means by which computers can
network, electronic transfer is faster since
“talk” to one another through the use of cables,
computers can share peripherals (e.g. printer
telephone lines, radio waves, satellites or infrared
and hard disk drives) with any other computer.
light beams that connect them.
3. Sharing Software Resources – by means of
network, programs or applications used by
computers to perform any useful function or to
carry out daily basis task can be installed and
configured centrally on a server and shared
by all. With this, more time and disk space are
saved.
4. Preserve Information – another advantage
is the increase in security. By means of
Figure 1. A Typical Computer Network networking, regular backups of data that are
kept on the server as well as on other
Data Communication refers to the study on how
connected computers on the network will not
devices, not necessarily computers, can transfer
immediately result in loss of information, since
digital information (commonly known as “signals”) via
these data are still accessible from other
wired or wireless transmission medium which include:
computers whenever required.
For Electricity: copper wires coaxial cable. 5. Communication – by means of the network,
Twisted pair (UTP and STP) the office can be a paperless environment
since users can instantly send messages to
For Light: Infrared through air, laser through others and even check whether or not their
fiber optic cable messages have been received.
For Electromagnetic Radiation: broadcast Requirements for internet connection
radio (radio frequencies), microwave, satellite
1. Physical connection – it is used to transfer
Telecommunications comes from a contraction of signals between PCs within the local network
the Greek “tele”, which means “far” and Latin root and to remote devices on the internet.
“communicare”, which means “discipline that studies 2. Logical connection – it uses a standard
the principles of transmitting information and the called protocols or a set of protocols lie
methods by which it is delivered”. It refers to any TCP/IP
process that permits the exchange of information 3. Application that interprets the data and
(e.g. voice, data, text, images and video signals) over display the information – it works with
great distances, in the form of electromagnetic protocols to send and receive data across the
signals electromagnetic system (e.g. satellite Internet such as web browser, File Transfer
systems, broadband systems, microwave systems, Protocol (FTP) and etc.
digital networks, telephone networks, radio stations,
LAN and wireless networks). “Ping” command utility is used to verify network
connectivity. It works by sending multiple IP packets
Computer Network Advantages to the specified destination and waiting for the packet
1. Sharing information. Sharing is the real key replies. If the ping receives an echo reply, the
to networking. By means of network,
CPEN 100 - COMPUTER NETWORKS
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING

connectivity is verified. If it fails, however, it will show 6. Power Supply – it is a component that
messages. supplies power to a computer and converts
AC power to DC and breaks it into the
The following examples describe the types of ping
amounts needed by different devices.
tests that are commonly used in a network
7. Hard Disk Drive (HDD) – it is a device that
 Ping 127.0.0.1 – it is called an internal reads and writes data on a hard disk. Two
loopback test. main types of drive interfaces are current in
 Ping the IP address of host computer – it today’s computers: Integrated Drive
verifies connectivity to the host. Electronics (IDE) drive and the Small
 Ping default-gateway IP address – it verifies Computer System Interface (SCSI;
whether the router that connects the local pronounced scuzzy) drive.
network to other networks can be reached. 8. Operating System – it is a software that
 Ping remote destination IP address – it controls the operation of the computer
verifies connectivity to a remote host. (Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, and so on.)

Computers are one of the major categories of Components of a computer that required access from
network “building blocks,” thus it is important to be the outside
able to identify and describe their major components, 1. External Ports – these are connectors to
including both hardware and software which are which other devices attached, including the
involved with the internal processing. following:
Computer Components:  Serial Port – it connects to
asynchronous serial devices, such as
1. Motherboard – it is the main printed circuit an external modem.
board of a computer.  Video Port – it connects to an external
2. Central Processing Unit (CPU) – it is the video monitor.
part of a computer that controls all the other  Ethernet Port – it connects to an
components. It fetches instructions from Ethernet network data cable.
memory and decodes them. This action may  Universal Serial Bus (USB) Port – It
cause it to transfer to or from memory or to is a standard connection port
activate peripherals to perform input or output. designed for connecting computer
3. Bus – it is a collection of wires through which peripherals such as mouse, keyboard,
data is transmitted from one part of a joysticks, printers, scanners, digital
computer to another. It connects all the cameras, flash drives, and external
internal computer components to the CPU. HDDs.
The Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) and  PS/2 Port – it is an external keyboard
the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) and mouse connection.
are the two types of buses. 2. Compact disc read – only memory (CD-
4. Random Access Memory (RAM) – it is also ROM) drive – it is a device into which CD can
known as read-write computer memory that be inserted and the data read from it.
has new data written into it as well as stored 3. Compact disc read – write memory (CD-
data read from it. A drawback of RAM is that RW) drive it is a device into which a CD can
it requires electrical power to maintain data be inserted and the data read from it; if
storage. If the computer is turned OFF or writable CD media are used, data can also be
loses power, all data stored in RAM is lost, stored on it.
unless the data was saved to disk. 4. Floppy Disk Drive – it is a disk that can read
5. Read-Only-Memory (ROM) – it is a computer and write to floppy disks, usually in the “3 ½”
memory on which data has been prerecorded. 1.44-megabyte (MB) or “5 1/4“1.2 MB format.
Once data has been written onto a ROM chip,
it cannot be removed and can only be read.
CPEN 100 - COMPUTER NETWORKS
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING

 Medium Type (UTP, STP, 10Base2,

10Base5, 10BaseF)
 Transport Speed (1 Mbps, 4 Mbps, 10 Mbps,
16 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps)
Types of network administration software are as
follows:
1. Network Operating System (NOS) – this
coordinates the activities of multiple
computers across a network through the
following remote services below. These
remote services enable concurrent access to
share resources, either by multiple clients
(peer-to-peer networking operating system)
or server systems responding to a client
request (client/ server networking operating
system)
 Access to remote printers – the
NOS allows one to manage the usage
of printer as to when will it be used or
what printer is connected to a certain
Figure 2. An Idealized Computer: Information Flow computer. It also allows how print jobs
are queued and managed and
Information that flows through the bus:
recognizes when devices are not
1. Boot Instructions – these are stored in available to the network.
ROM, until they are sent out.  Access to files on remote systems
2. Software Applications – these are stored in – the NOS allows one to determine
RAM after they have been loaded. who can and can’t access a certain
3. RAM and ROM – These two constantly talk to data/ file.
the CPU through the bus.  Access to remote applications and
4. Application information – these are stored resources (e.g. Internet) – the NOS
in RAM while applications are being used. allows one to make the network
5. Saved Information – This flows from RAM to resources transparent and available to
some form of storage device. the user.
6. Exported Information – this flows from RAM  Routing services (including
and the CPU, through the bus and expansion support for major networking
slots, to the printer, video card, sound card, or protocols) – the NOS allows one to
network card. determine what and where to send a
certain data.
Network INTERFACE CARD (NIC) (a.k.a LAN
 System and security monitoring –
Adapter) is an expansion board that provides network
the NOS provides proper security
communication capabilities to and from a computer
against viruses, hackers, and data
system.
corruption.
When selecting a network card, the following are to  Basic Network Administration
be considered: utilities (e.g. SNM – Simple Network
Management Protocol) – The NOS
 Bus type (PCI, ISA, EISA, and so on)
enables one to perform task involving
 Network Topology (bus, ring, star) managing resources and users.
CPEN 100 - COMPUTER NETWORKS
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING

2. Network Monitoring Software – this can be

simple or sophisticated, and either free or
purchasable. Its two general categories are as
follows:
 Protocol Analyzers – this captures
packets of data that are transmitted on
the network between computers.
These also “decode” the data so that
one can read it and determine what is
going on during the transmission.
 Sniffing Software (a.k.a. packet
sniffers) – this operates similarly as a
telephone wiretap. Through this, one
can observe the communication
between designated computers on the
network to determine how the
transmission is progressing, and at the
same time what is being transmitted.
3. Network management Software – this
allows one to perform the following task
below. Examples of this are the System
Figure 3. Shows the American Standard Code for
Management Server (SMS) manufactured by
Information Interchange(ASCII) Chart.
Microsoft, Tivoli Enterprise by IBM and the
OpenView of Hewlett-Packard. ASCII - it displays the binary number representation
 Documenting the devices on a of many keyboard and control characters.
network and the status of each device.
 Managing software licenses.
 Controlling computers on the network
remotely.
 Receiving notifications of network
problems.
Decimal Number System – it is the number system
that we are all familiar with.
Binary Number System – the foundation of any
computer machine, the “off state” stands for the
numeric symbol “0”, while the “on state” stands for the
numeric symbol “1”. These 0s and 1s represent the
two possible states of an electronic component and
are referred the two possible states of an electronic
component and are referred to as binary digits or bits.
The network device addresses as well as the
Internet use this binary system to define their location
on the network.