Computer - Networking

A computer network is a system in which multiple computers are connected to each other to
share information and resources.

Characteristics of a Computer Network

 Share resources from one computer to another.

 Create files and store them in one computer, access those files from the other computers

 connected over the network.

 Connect a printer, scanner, or a fax machine to one computer within the network and let
other computers of the network use the machines available over the network.

Following is the list of hardware's required to set up a computer network.

 Network Cables
 Distributors
 Routers
 Internal Network Cards
 External Network Cards

Network Cables

Network cables are used to connect computers. The most commonly used cable is Category 5
cable RJ-45.

Distributors

A computer can be connected to another one via a serial port but if we need to connect many
computers to produce a network, this serial connection will not work.
The solution is to use a central body to which other computers, printers, scanners, etc. can be
connected and then this body will manage or distribute network traffic.

Router

A router is a type of device which acts as the central point among computers and other devices
that are a part of the network. It is equipped with holes called ports. Computers and other devices
are connected to a router using network cables. Now-a-days router comes in wireless modes
using which computers can be connected without any physical cable.

Network Card

Network card is a necessary component of a computer without which a computer cannot be

connected over a network. It is also known as the network adapter or Network Interface Card
NIC

. Most branded computers have network card pre-installed. Network cards are of two types:
Internal and External Network Cards.

Internal Network Cards

Motherboard has a slot for internal network card where it is to be inserted. Internal network cards
are of two types in which the first type uses Peripheral Component Interconnect PCI

connection, while the second type uses Industry Standard Architecture ISA

. Network cables are required to provide network access.

External Network Cards

External network cards are of two types: Wireless and USB based. Wireless network card needs
to be inserted into the motherboard, however no network cable is required to connect to the
network.

Universal Serial Bus USB

USB card is easy to use and connects via USB port. Computers automatically detect USB card
and can install the drivers required to support the USB network card automatically.

A system of interconnected computers and computerized peripherals such as printers is called

computer network. This interconnection among computers facilitates information sharing among
them. Computers may connect to each other by either wired or wireless media.

Classification of Computer Networks

Computer networks are classified based on various factors.They includes:

 Geographical span
 Inter-connectivity
 Administration
 Architecture

Geographical Span

Geographically a network can be seen in one of the following categories:

  It may be spanned across your table, among Bluetooth enabled devices,. Ranging not
more than few meters.
 It may be spanned across a whole building, including intermediate devices to connect all
floors.
 It may be spanned across a whole city.
 It may be spanned across multiple cities or provinces.
 It may be one network covering whole world.

Inter-Connectivity

Components of a network can be connected to each other differently in some fashion. By

connectedness we mean either logically , physically , or both ways.

 Every single device can be connected to every other device on network, making the
network mesh.
 All devices can be connected to a single medium but geographically disconnected,
created bus like structure.
 Each device is connected to its left and right peers only, creating linear structure.
 All devices connected together with a single device, creating star like structure.
 All devices connected arbitrarily using all previous ways to connect each other, resulting
in a hybrid structure.

Administration

From an administrator’s point of view, a network can be private network which belongs a single
autonomous system and cannot be accessed outside its physical or logical domain.A network can
be public which is accessed by all.

Network Architecture

Computer networks can be discriminated into various types such as Client-Server,peer-

to-peer or hybrid, depending upon its architecture.

 There can be one or more systems acting as Server. Other being Client, requests the
Server to serve requests.Server takes and processes request on behalf of Clients.
 Two systems can be connected Point-to-Point, or in back-to-back fashion. They both
reside at the same level and called peers.
 There can be hybrid network which involves network architecture of both the above
types.

Network Applications

Computer systems and peripherals are connected to form a network.They provide numerous
advantages:

 Resource sharing such as printers and storage devices

 Exchange of information by means of e-Mails and FTP
 Information sharing by using Web or Internet
  Interaction with other users using dynamic web pages
 IP phones
 Video conferences
 Parallel computing
 Instant messaging

Generally, networks are distinguished based on their geographical span. A network can be as
small as distance between your mobile phone and its Bluetooth headphone and as large as the
internet itself, covering the whole geographical world,

Personal Area Network

A Personal Area Network (PAN) is smallest network which is very personal to a user. This may
include Bluetooth enabled devices or infra-red enabled devices. PAN has connectivity range up
to 10 meters. PAN may include wireless computer keyboard and mouse, Bluetooth enabled
headphones, wireless printers and TV remotes.

For example, Piconet is Bluetooth-enabled Personal Area Network which may contain up to 8
devices connected together in a master-slave fashion.

Local Area Network

A computer network spanned inside a building and operated under single administrative system
is generally termed as Local Area Network (LAN). Usually,LAN covers an organization’ offices,
schools, colleges or universities. Number of systems connected in LAN may vary from as least
as two to as much as 16 million.

LAN provides a useful way of sharing the resources between end users.The resources such as
printers, file servers, scanners, and internet are easily sharable among computers.

LANs are composed of inexpensive networking and routing equipment. It may contains local
servers serving file storage and other locally shared applications. It mostly operates on private IP
addresses and does not involve heavy routing. LAN works under its own local domain and
controlled centrally.

LAN uses either Ethernet or Token-ring technology. Ethernet is most widely employed LAN
technology and uses Star topology, while Token-ring is rarely seen.

LAN can be wired,wireless, or in both forms at once.

Metropolitan Area Network

The Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) generally expands throughout a city such as cable TV
network. It can be in the form of Ethernet,Token-ring, ATM, or Fiber Distributed Data Interface
(FDDI).

Metro Ethernet is a service which is provided by ISPs. This service enables its users to expand
their Local Area Networks. For example, MAN can help an organization to connect all of its
offices in a city.

Backbone of MAN is high-capacity and high-speed fiber optics. MAN works in between Local
Area Network and Wide Area Network. MAN provides uplink for LANs to WANs or internet.

Wide Area Network

As the name suggests,the Wide Area Network (WAN) covers a wide area which may span across
provinces and even a whole country. Generally, telecommunication networks are Wide Area
Network. These networks provide connectivity to MANs and LANs. Since they are equipped
with very high speed backbone, WANs use very expensive network equipment.

WAN may use advanced technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Frame
Relay, and Synchronous Optical Network (SONET). WAN may be managed by multiple
administration.
Internetwork

A network of networks is called an internetwork, or simply the internet. It is the largest network
in existence on this planet.The internet hugely connects all WANs and it can have connection to
LANs and Home networks. Internet uses TCP/IP protocol suite and uses IP as its addressing
protocol. Present day, Internet is widely implemented using IPv4. Because of shortage of address
spaces, it is gradually migrating from IPv4 to IPv6.

Internet enables its users to share and access enormous amount of information worldwide. It uses
WWW, FTP, email services, audio and video streaming etc. At huge level, internet works on
Client-Server model.

Internet uses very high speed backbone of fiber optics. To inter-connect various continents,
fibers are laid under sea known to us as submarine communication cable.

Internet is widely deployed on World Wide Web services using HTML linked pages and is
accessible by client software known as Web Browsers. When a user requests a page using some
web browser located on some Web Server anywhere in the world, the Web Server responds with
the proper HTML page. The communication delay is very low.

Internet is serving many proposes and is involved in many aspects of life. Some of them are:

 Web sites
 E-mail
 Instant Messaging
 Blogging
 Social Media
 Marketing
 Networking
 Resource Sharing
 Audio and Video Streaming
 Let us go through various LAN technologies in brief:

Ethernet

Ethernet is a widely deployed LAN technology.This technology was invented by Bob

Metcalfe and D.R. Boggs in the year 1970. It was standardized in IEEE 802.3 in
1980.

Ethernet shares media. Network which uses shared media has high probability of data
collision. Ethernet uses Carrier Sense Multi Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD)
technology to detect collisions. On the occurrence of collision in Ethernet, all its hosts
roll back, wait for some random amount of time, and then re-transmit the data.

Ethernet connector is,network interface card equipped with 48-bits MAC address. This helps
other Ethernet devices to identify and communicate with remote devices in Ethernet.
Traditional Ethernet uses 10BASE-T specifications.The number 10 depicts 10MBPS speed,
BASE stands for baseband, and T stands for Thick Ethernet. 10BASE-T Ethernet provides
transmission speed up to 10MBPS and uses coaxial cable or Cat-5 twisted pair cable with RJ-
45 connector. Ethernet follows star topology with segment length up to 100 meters. All
devices are connected to a hub/switch in a star fashion.

Fast-Ethernet

To encompass need of fast emerging software and hardware technologies, Ethernet

extends itself as Fast-Ethernet. It can run on UTP, Optical Fiber, and wirelessly too. It
can provide speed up to 100 MBPS. This standard is named as 100BASE-T in IEEE
803.2 using Cat-5 twisted pair cable. It uses CSMA/CD technique for wired media
sharing among the Ethernet hosts and CSMA/CA (CA stands for Collision
Avoidance) technique for wireless Ethernet LAN.

Fast Ethernet on fiber is defined under 100BASE-FX standard which provides speed
up to 100 MBPS on fiber. Ethernet over fiber can be extended up to 100 meters in
half-duplex mode and can reach maximum of 2000 meters in full-duplex over
multimode fibers.

Giga-Ethernet

After being introduced in 1995, Fast-Ethernet could enjoy its high speed status only
for 3 years till Giga-Ethernet introduced. Giga-Ethernet provides speed up to 1000
mbits/seconds. IEEE802.3ab standardize Giga-Ethernet over UTP using Cat-5, Cat-5e
and Cat-6 cables. IEEE802.3ah defines Giga-Ethernet over Fiber.

Virtual LAN

LAN uses Ethernet which in turn works on shared media. Shared media in Ethernet create
one single Broadcast domain and one single Collision domain. Introduction of switches to
Ethernet has removed single collision domain issue and each device connected to switch
works in its separate collision domain. But even Switches cannot divide a network into
separate Broadcast domains.

Virtual LAN is a solution to divide a single Broadcast domain into multiple Broadcast
domains. Host in one VLAN cannot speak to a host in another. By default, all hosts are
placed into the same VLAN.
 In this diagram, different VLANs are depicted in different color codes. Hosts in one VLAN,
even if connected on the same Switch cannot see or speak to other hosts in different VLANs.
VLAN is Layer-2 technology which works closely on Ethernet. To route packets between
two different VLANs a Layer-3 device such as Router is required.

A Network Topology is the arrangement with which computer systems or network devices
are connected to each other. Topologies may define both physical and logical aspect of the
network. Both logical and physical topologies could be same or different in a same network.

Point-to-Point

Point-to-point networks contains exactly two hosts such as computer, switches or routers, servers
connected back to back using a single piece of cable. Often, the receiving end of one host is
connected to sending end of the other and vice-versa.

If the hosts are connected point-to-point logically, then may have multiple intermediate devices.
But the end hosts are unaware of underlying network and see each other as if they are connected
directly.

Bus Topology

In case of Bus topology, all devices share single communication line or cable.Bus topology may
have problem while multiple hosts sending data at the same time. Therefore, Bus topology either
uses CSMA/CD technology or recognizes one host as Bus Master to solve the issue. It is one of
the simple forms of networking where a failure of a device does not affect the other devices. But
failure of the shared communication line can make all other devices stop functioning.

Both ends of the shared channel have line terminator. The data is sent in only one direction and
as soon as it reaches the extreme end, the terminator removes the data from the line.

Star Topology
All hosts in Star topology are connected to a central device, known as hub device, using a point-
to-point connection. That is, there exists a point to point connection between hosts and hub. The
hub device can be any of the following:

 Layer-1 device such as hub or repeater

 Layer-2 device such as switch or bridge
 Layer-3 device such as router or gateway

As in Bus topology, hub acts as single point of failure. If hub fails, connectivity of all hosts to all
other hosts fails. Every communication between hosts, takes place through only the hub.Star
topology is not expensive as to connect one more host, only one cable is required and
configuration is simple.

Ring Topology

In ring topology, each host machine connects to exactly two other machines, creating a circular
network structure. When one host tries to communicate or send message to a host which is not
adjacent to it, the data travels through all intermediate hosts. To connect one more host in the
existing structure, the administrator may need only one more extra cable.

Failure of any host results in failure of the whole ring.Thus, every connection in the ring is a
point of failure. There are methods which employ one more backup ring.

Mesh Topology

In this type of topology, a host is connected to one or multiple hosts.This topology has hosts in
point-to-point connection with every other host or may also have hosts which are in point-to-
point connection to few hosts only.
Hosts in Mesh topology also work as relay for other hosts which do not have direct point-to-
point links. Mesh technology comes into two types:

 Full Mesh: All hosts have a point-to-point connection to every other host in the network.
Thus for every new host n(n-1)/2 connections are required. It provides the most reliable
network structure among all network topologies.
 Partially Mesh: Not all hosts have point-to-point connection to every other host. Hosts
connect to each other in some arbitrarily fashion. This topology exists where we need to
provide reliability to some hosts out of all.

Tree Topology

Also known as Hierarchical Topology, this is the most common form of network topology in use
presently.This topology imitates as extended Star topology and inherits properties of bus
topology.

This topology divides the network in to multiple levels/layers of network. Mainly in LANs, a
network is bifurcated into three types of network devices. The lowermost is access-layer where
computers are attached. The middle layer is known as distribution layer, which works as
mediator between upper layer and lower layer. The highest layer is known as core layer, and is
central point of the network, i.e. root of the tree from which all nodes fork.

All neighboring hosts have point-to-point connection between them.Similar to the Bus topology,
if the root goes down, then the entire network suffers even.though it is not the single point of
failure. Every connection serves as point of failure, failing of which divides the network into
unreachable segment.
Daisy Chain

This topology connects all the hosts in a linear fashion. Similar to Ring topology, all hosts are
connected to two hosts only, except the end hosts.Means, if the end hosts in daisy chain are
connected then it represents Ring topology.

Each link in daisy chain topology represents single point of failure. Every link failure splits the
network into two segments.Every intermediate host works as relay for its immediate hosts.

Hybrid Topology

A network structure whose design contains more than one topology is said to be hybrid topology.
Hybrid topology inherits merits and demerits of all the incorporating topologies.

The above picture represents an arbitrarily hybrid topology. The combining topologies may
contain attributes of Star, Ring, Bus, and Daisy-chain topologies. Most WANs are connected by
means of Dual-Ring topology and networks connected to them are mostly Star topology
networks. Internet is the best example of largest Hybrid topology