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Computer Network
A network is a system of microcomputers linked together with
telecommunications hardware and software. Networked computers draw
additional computing power from the other computers on the network, which
can include other microcomputers, minicomputers, and mainframes.

Telecommunications. Telecommunications is the use of networks of

interconnected computers and peripheral devices to process and
exchange data and information. Hardware such as modems allow
computers at distant locations to share information over telephone lines.
Network operating systems are software programs that control resource
sharing and communications flow among computers and peripherals on
a local area network (LAN).
Networked computers draw additional computing power from the other
computers on the network, which can include other microcomputers,
minicomputers, and mainframes. This capability is known as
distributed processing.
Distributed Processing. This is the ability to spread the processing
requirements for a particular task around the network to take advantage
of unused processing capacity.

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The figure of the slide outlines the four major strategic capabilities of information technology:
Time Barriers. Strategic use of information systems helps overcome time barriers by focusing
on interval reduction and just-in-time operations. The goal is to shorten the response time to
customer demands and reduce inventory investment to a minimum. Operating in real time
means no time lag between the identification and fulfillment of a need.
Geographic Barriers. Telecommunications and computing technologies make it possible to
distribute key business activities to where they are needed most, where they are best
performed, or where they best support the competitive advantage of a business.
Telecommunication networks allow instantaneous access to all members and resources of the
organization, however remote, so that the best combination of talent and ability can be brought
to bear on problems or opportunities.
Cost Barriers. Information systems help reduce costs in many areas: production, inventory,
distribution, or communications. For example, decentralized decision making can be
combined with centralized implementation of those decisions for greater economy without
sacrificing the efficiency of the process.
The IS also reduces travel costs as distance conferencing makes it less necessary to bring
staff to headquarters for meetings.
Structural Barriers. Structural barriers in business include traditional constraints in how
business is conducted (such as hours of operation and labor costs) and the processing time
various firms in a channel of distribution take to act on customer demand. An IS can extend
hours of operation (example: automatic teller machines at banks), service support (example:
24 hour customer support for software products), and improve distribution (example: EDI
between manufacturers and suppliers, or wholesalers and retailers).

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Major trends occurring in the field of telecommunications have a significant impact on
management decisions in this area. Key trends include:
Industry Trends. The key trend in this area is a move away from a few, large,
regulated monopolies as suppliers toward an industry structure with many suppliers in
fierce competition for new customers with new products and innovative services.
Bottom line: The service and vendor options available to meet a company's
telecommunications needs have increased dramatically.
Technology Trends. Digital transmission of information is the wave of the future.
Besides being "computer ready" digital communication offer four distinct advantages
to businesses and end users:
1. Significantly higher transmission speeds.
2. Movement of larger amounts of information.
3. Greater economy.
4. Much lower error rates (compared to analog transmission).
Another major technology trend is the advent of open systems -- information systems
that use common standards for hardware, software, applications, and networking.
Open systems create a computing environment characterized by easy access by
developers, suppliers, and end users.
Application Trends. Technology and industry trends combine to open up application
development to more providers, more products, and more choices for businesses and
end users.
Discussion Note: Some choices are misleading. For example, application software
for the personal computer in the utilities area (Symantec), statistics (SPSS), and
personal finance (Quicken) are dominated by single companies who have bought
their smaller rivals. The products and brands are maintained, but the control in these
areas is very much monopolistic.

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The figure of the slide outlines the four major strategic capabilities of information
technology:
Time Barriers. Strategic use of information systems helps overcome time barriers by
focusing on interval reduction and just-in-time operations. The goal is to shorten the
response time to customer demands and reduce inventory investment to a minimum.
Operating in real time means no time lag between the identification and fulfillment of
a need.
Geographic Barriers. Telecommunications and computing technologies make it
possible to distribute key business activities to where they are needed most, where
they are best performed, or where they best support the competitive advantage of a
business. Telecommunication networks allow instantaneous access to all members
and resources of the organization, however remote, so that the best combination of
talent and ability can be brought to bear on problems or opportunities.
Cost Barriers. Information systems help reduce costs in many areas: production,
inventory, distribution, or communications. For example, decentralized decision
making can be combined with centralized implementation of those decisions for
greater economy without sacrificing the efficiency of the process.
Teaching Tip: The IS also reduces travel costs as distance conferencing makes it
less necessary to bring staff to headquarters for meetings.
Structural Barriers. Structural barriers in business include traditional constraints in
how business is conducted (such as hours of operation and labor costs) and the
processing time various firms in a channel of distribution take to act on customer
demand. An IS can extend hours of operation (example: automatic teller machines
at banks), service support (example: 24 hour customer support for software
products), and improve distribution (example: EDI between manufacturers and
suppliers, or wholesalers and retailers).

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Local Area Networks (LAN) connect computers and other information processing
devices within a limited physical area, such as an office, classroom, building,
manufacturing plant, or other work site. LANs have become commonplace in many
organizations for providing telecommunications network capabilities that link end
users in offices, departments, and other workgroups.

Wide Area Networks (MAN) cover a large geographic areas. Networks that cover a
large city or metropolitan area (MAN) are also included in this category. Such large
networks have become a necessity for carrying out the day-to-day activities of many
business and government organizations and their end users.

Example: WANs are used by many multinational companies to transmit and receive
information among their employees, customers, suppliers, and other organizations
across cities, regions, countries, and the world.

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Local Area Networks (LANs) connect computers and other information
processing devices within a limited physical area, such as an office, a building,
or work site. LANs use a variety of telecommunications media. Key concepts
and components of LANs include:
Network Interface Card. PCs on a network must have a circuit board installed
to handle the network interface. This is the typical way of expanding PC
capability.
Network Server. As mentioned earlier, this is a dedicated PC with a large hard
disk capacity for secondary storage. Many servers also have more RAM than
the individual workstations on the network.
Network Operating System. Just as individual PCs have their own operating
systems, the network operating system controls the interface between users
and machine hardware as well as the telecommunications peripherals linking
them.
Internetworks. Most LANs are connected via telecommunications to other
networks, which might be other LANs, wide area networks (WANs),
mainframes, or very large networks like the Internet.

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Most organizations use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to establish secure
intranets and extranets.

A virtual private network is a secure network that uses the Internet as its
main backbone network, but relies on the fire walls and other security features
of its Internet and intranet connections and those of participating
organizations.

Example: VPN’s would enable a company to use the Internet to establish

secure intranets between its distant branch offices and manufacturing plants,
and secure extranets between itself and its customers and suppliers.

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•There are two main ways a network can be administered (or run): locally or centrally.
A peer-to-peer network is the most common example of a locally administered
network. The most common type of centrally administered network is a client/server
network.

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•In peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, each node connected to the network can
communicate directly with every other node on the network, rather than having
a separate device exercise central control over the entire network.
•Thus, all nodes on this type of network are in a sense peers.
•When printing, for example, a computer on a P2P network doesn’t have to go
through the computer that’s connected to the printer. Instead, it can
communicate directly with the printer.
•Because they are simple to set up, P2P networks are the most common type
of home network.

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•Most networks that have 10 or more nodes are client/server networks.
•A client/server network contains two types of computers: clients and servers.
•The client is the computer on which users accomplish specific tasks and make
specific requests.
•The server is the computer that provides information or resources to the client
computers on the network.
•The server on a client/server network also provides central control for
functions on the network (such as printing).
•The Internet is a client/server network. When your computer is connected to
the Internet, it is functioning as a client computer. When connecting to the
Internet through an ISP, your computer connects to a server computer
maintained by the ISP. The server “serves up” resources to your computer so
that you can interact with the Internet.
•Home server options, such as Windows Home Server or Sony’s media
servers, are now being marketed as the use of media files on home computers
expands rapidly.

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Midrange computers have become popular as powerful network servers included in corporate
Intranets and Extranets and in client server networks.
A network is a system of microcomputers and servers linked together with telecommunications
hardware and software.
Telecommunications. Telecommunications is the use of networks of interconnected computers
and peripheral devices to process and exchange data and information. Hardware such as
modems allow computers at distant locations to share information over telephone lines. Network
operating systems are software programs that control resource sharing and communications flow
among computers and peripherals on a local area network (LAN).
Networked computers draw additional computing power from the other computers on the network,
which can include other microcomputers, minicomputers, and mainframes. This capability is
known as distributed processing.
Distributed Processing. This is the ability to spread the processing requirements for a particular
task around the network to take advantage of unused processing capacity.
Client server architectures, which are used frequently in businesses have the following
components:
Client. A client on a network is typically a microcomputer that serves an end user for most of her
or his processing needs. Programs for the client and extra processing capacity are provided as
needed by the network.
Server. A server is a host or central computer that is dedicated to managing the logistics of
routing data, information, and processing capacity among the clients on the system. In small
networks, the server might be a single PC. On larger networks, the server can be a minicomputer
or a mainframe. In very large organizations, several networks might be served, each by their own
minicomputer, which in turn, is linked to the host mainframe.

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•All network nodes are connected to each other and to the network by
transmission media. A transmission medium establishes a communications
channel between the nodes on a network and can take several forms.
1.Networks can use existing wiring (such as phone lines or power lines)
to connect nodes.
2.Networks can use additional cable (such as twisted pair cable, coaxial
cable, or fiber-optic cable) to connect nodes.
3.Wireless networks use radio waves instead of wires or cable to
connect nodes.
•The data transfer rate (also called bandwidth) is the maximum speed at which
data can be transmitted between two nodes on a network.
•Throughput is the actual speed of data transfer that is achieved; this is usually
less than the data transfer rate.

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Telecommunications channels make use of a wide variety of media. In some cases,
the media are complementary and the use of more than one media increases the
functions and features of the telecommunications network. In other cases, the media
are in direct competition with each other, hoping to capture customers from other
media choices.
Discussion Note: The dual nature of telecommunications has implications yet to be
resolved for open systems architecture.
Some major types of telecommunications media include:
Twisted-Pair Wire. This is the traditional phone line used throughout the world. It is
the most widely distributed telecommunications media but is limited in the amount of
data and speed of transmission.
Coaxial Cable. This is a sturdy copper or aluminum wire wrapped in spacers to
insulate and protect it. Coaxial cable can carry more information and at higher
speeds than twisted pair wires. It also is a higher-quality carrier, with little
interference.
Fiber Optics. These are hair-thin glass filaments spun into wires and wrapped in a
protective jacket. Fiber optics transmit light pulses as carriers of information and so
are extremely fast and produce no electromagnetic radiation. This makes them
extremely reliable channels, although splicing cables for connections is difficult.
Terrestrial Microwave. Earthbound microwave radiation transmit high-speed radio
signals in line-of-sight paths between relay stations..
Communications Satellites. Satellites in geosynchronous orbit are used to transmit
microwave signals to any place on earth using dish antennas for sending and
receiving.
Cellular Radio. Low power transmitters on each cell of the system allow users to take
advantage of several frequencies for communications.
Wireless LANs. Using radio or infrared transmission, some LANs are completely
wireless, thus eliminating the cost of installing wire in existing structures.

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•Network adapters are devices connected to or installed in network nodes that
enable the nodes to communicate with each other and to access the network.
•Other network adapters are installed inside computers and peripherals as
expansion cards. These adapters are referred to as network interface cards
(NICs).
•Some network adapters take the form of external devices that plug into an
available USB port.

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Modem (Modulator-DEModulator). A device that converts the digital signals from input/output devices
into appropriate frequencies at a transmission terminal and converts them back into digital signals at a
receiving terminal.

Multiplexer: An electronic device that allows a single communications channel to carry simultaneous
data transmission from many terminals.

Internetwork Processors: Communications processors used by local area networks to interconnect

them with other local area and wide area networks. Examples include switches, routers, hubs, and
gateways.

Fire wall: Computers, communications processors, and software that protect computer networks from
intrusion by screening all network traffic and serving as a safe transfer point for access to and from other
networks.

Network Operating System: Is a program that controls telecommunications and the use and sharing of
network resources.

Telecommunications Monitor: Computer programs that control and support the communications
between the computers and terminals in a telecommunications network.

Middleware: Software that helps diverse networked computer systems work together, thus promoting
their interoperability.

Network Management Software: Software packages such as network operating systems and
telecommunications monitors used to determine transmission priorities, route (switch) messages, poll
terminals in the network, and form waiting waiting lines (queues) of transmission requests.

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•Data is sent over transmission media in bundles (packets). For computers to
communicate, these packets of data must be able to flow between computers.
Network navigation devices help make this data flow possible.
•In simple networks, navigation devices are built right into network adapters.
More sophisticated networks need specialized navigation devices.
•The two most common specialized navigation devices are routers and
switches.
-Routers transfer packets of data between two or more networks. For
example, if a home network is connected to the Internet, a router is
required to send data between the two networks.
-Switches receive data packets and send them to the node for which
they are intended on the same network (not between different
networks).

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-Routers transfer packets of data between two or more networks. For
example, if a home network is connected to the Internet, a router is
required to send data between the two networks.

-Switches receive data packets and send them to the node for which
they are intended on the same network (not between different
networks).

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