Network basics

To share data and network resources among the computers in a network is known as networking. Computer networking is a core part of the whole information technology field because without it computers can never communication with each other locally and remotely. Just image that if you work in a bank or in a corporate office and all the computers in your office are without networking. How difficult it would be for you and for the other employees of your office to communications, shares data such as word documents, financial reports, client’s feedback, graphical reports and other important work with the other employees.

Put the same scenario if your office has different branches in the same country and different countries. Data communication has become the vital part of the whole computing industry. There are different standards, protocols, devices and applications that form computer network architecture. With the passage of time there are improved standards, communication devices and network applications that make the data communication processor easier. Following is the basic review of the important things that are involved in the data communication system.

TCP/IP
Protocols are the set of rules, agree upon ways and communication standards that computer and devices use to communication with each other. TCP/IP stands for transmission control protocol/Internet protocol. TCP/IP is the standard protocol for network communication in LAN or WAN. All the devices and applications have to follow to same protocols to make network communication system.

  
Communication Devices
There are certain devices that are used in LAN/MAN/WAN and wireless networking. The most important devices are router, switch, hub, modem, NIC adapter, access points, broadband router and communication cables. Hub/Switch is a centralized device in a LAN and all the computers connect with the Hub/Switch. In case of failure of Hub/Switch the whole communication stops. Router routes the traffic to the destination based on the IP address of the source and destination computer. With the help of the routing table, the router chooses the best short possible path for data to be sent to its destination. Wireless routers and access points are used in the wireless networking.

Types of Networking
There are three main types of the computer networking such as LAN, MAN and WAN. A LAN covers a room or a building. A MAN covers a network in a city and a WAN covers wide areas such as in a city, country or a network between two or more countries. A LAN can be wired or wireless, MAN can be wired or Wireless and WAN can be through wireless communication technologies such as ISDN lines, frame relay and ATM.

Wireless Networking
Wireless networks are replacing the wired networks rapidly. The administrative control becomes less due to the removal of the bundle of cables in wireless network. The key components are wireless router, access points and PCMCIA LAN cards.

OSI Layers Model
To understand the communication process make the data communication process standardized, the ISO developed the OSI (open system interconnectivity, which defines the seven layers of the OSI model. These seven layers include Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link and Physical layer. The detail on the OSI seven layers is covered in the separate topic of this website.

DHCP
DHCP stands for the dynamic host configuration protocol. As we know that a unique IP address is a must for communication in LAN, WAN or internet. Assume you are given the task to assign IP addresses to the 10,000 computers in a network. How would you assign? DHCP answers this questions and it assigns the unique IP addresses to all the computers from a given range. There is an administrative control and you can block, assign, lease, renew, specify duration for the IP address and you also do the many other administrative tasks on the DHCP.

DNS

DNS stands for domain name system. DNS translates (converts) the host name into the IP address and IP address into the host name. One thing is clear that the communication in a LAN private WAN or internet is based on the IP addresses. On internet every IP address is associated with the domain name let’s say assume that the IP address 120.1.1.1. is assigned to www.yahoo.com, 12.1.2.3 is assigned to www.google.com and 35.22.32.5 is assigned to www.msn.com and so on. Just imagine that how many IP addresses you can remember 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 or 1000. IP addresses are actually difficult to remember and domain names are easy so every IP address on the internet is associated with a domain name.

Wi-Fi
Wireless fidelity is a base band wireless networking technology that provides high speed internet connectivity to the offices and home users.

Wi-Max
Wi-Max is an advance broadband wireless network technology that provides very high speed up to 70 Mbps. Wi-Max is designed for the corporate office, roaming and home users.

Internet is an example of Network
Internet is the largest network in the work. Millions of computers from all over the world are internetworked with each other and are the part of the internet. The resources hosted on one computer in one part of the world such as web pages, songs files, graphics, video files, documents and images are accessible to the users in another part of the world.
 

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