Computer networking is the engineering

discipline concerned with communication

between computer systems or devices.
Networking, routers, routing protocols, and
networking over the public Internet have their
specifications defined in documents called RFCs.
Computer networking is sometimes considered
a sub-discipline of telecommunications,
computer science, information technology
and/or computer engineering. Computer
networks rely heavily upon the theoretical and
practical application of these scientific and
engineering disciplines.
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local area network (LAN), which is usually a

small network constrained to a small geographic

area.
wide area network (WAN) that is usually a

larger network that covers a large geographic

area.
wireless LANs and WANs (WLAN & WWAN) is

the wireless equivalent of the LAN and WAN

All networks are interconnected to allow

communication with a variety of different
kinds of media, including twisted-pair
copper wire cable, coaxial cable,
optical fiber, and various wireless
technologies. The devices can be
separated by a few meters (e.g. via
Bluetooth) or nearly unlimited distances
(e.g. via the interconnections of the
Internet).
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TYPES OF CABLES
Straight Through Cables.

These are normally used for a serial to serial connection. Before the
days of networking this was one of the best ways to connect
computers together and is still used on unix machines as a primary
method of connecting to the console.

Toslink and Optical Cables.

These are a new standard of transmitting audio down a fibre optic

cable. Mainly used by dolby surround sound systems and new
laptops.

USB Cables

Primarily used for the new standard of printing. Now used in many
different applications such as Cameras, phones and even
playstations. One can even do USB to USB LAN Connections. There
are currently two versions, USB1 and USB2. USB1 being 12MBps
transfer speed whereas USB2 runs at 480MBps (MBps is the Mega
Bits per second transfer speed).

Internal PC Cables

Internal PC cables connect devices within the actual computer to the

main board (motherboard). The slowest connection speed being used
by the floppy cable then the IDE cable which connects the hard drive.
SATA (Serial ATA) cables have now overtaken the IDE cable as the
primary method of connecting a hard drive to a motherboard. SCSI
cables generally are only used in servers for connecting the SCSI hard
drives.

Network Cables

There are two standards of Network cables, Cat5e and Cat6e. Within
these two standards there are two formats, straight through
(standard) and crossed. The difference being that straight through s
used in general networks throughout companies and is used for
connecting computers to network wall sockets and from network patch
panels to network switches (hubs). For smaller networks, i.e. two
computers, a cross over cable is used between two computers which
have network cards to allow them to talk to each other.
Difference of speed between Cat5e and Cat6e is generally thought to
be 100MBps for Cat5e and 1000MBps for Cat6e network cables.
Although in reality Cat5e can run at 1000MBps but is not correctly
shielded to do so.
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ADSL and Modem Cables

The modem cable connects the telephone socket to a router or modem. The
socket for connection to the modem or router is known as an RJ11 cable,
which is the American telephone standard. There are two types of modem
cable, one being the standard telephone wire being used by BT and other
telephone suppliers. The other type being a Cat5e cable shielded to allow
faster connection for fast broadband lines.

Null Modem Cables

These allow two computers to talk to each other directly through their serial
(RS232) ports. The null modem cables are useful for allowing portable
computers to connect to larger systems.

Firewire Cables

Firewire is the next step on from USB cables commonly used in digital
cameras, phones, laptops etc. The latest firewire cables now reach speeds of
800MBps. They also give serial ATA a run for its money as a lot of hard drive
caddies are now firewire compliant.

SWITCHES
A network switch is a
computer networking device
that connects network
segments. In the past, it was
faster to use Layer 2 techniques to
switch, when only MAC addresses
could be looked up in
content addressable memory
(CAM). With the advent of ternary
CAM (TCAM), it was equally fast to
look up an IP address or a MAC
address. TCAM is expensive, but
very appropriate for enterprise
switches that use default routes
plus a moderate number of other
routes. For routers that need a full
Internet routing table, TCAM may
not be cost-effective.
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The network switch, packet switch (or just switch) plays

an integral part in most Ethernet local area networks or LANs.
Mid-to-large sized LANs contain a number of linked managed
switches. Small office, home office (SOHO) applications
typically use a single switch, or an all-purpose
converged device such as gateway access to small
office/home office broadband services such as
DSL router or cable, WiFi router. In most of these cases,
the end user device contains a router and components that
interface to the particular physical broadband technology, as in
the Linksys 8-port and 48-port devices. User devices may also
include a telephone interface to VoIP.

Rack mounted
Non-rack mounted, typically intended to be used in a

home or office environment outside of the wiring closet

Chassis with swappable "switch module" cards. e.g.

Alcatel's OmniSwitch 7000 and some of Cisco's

Catalyst switches, including the 4500 and 6500 series.
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Traffic monitoring on a
switched network
Unless port mirroring or other methods

such as RMON[10] or SMON are

implemented in a switch, it is difficult to
monitor traffic that is bridged using a
switch because all ports are isolated
until one transmits data, and even then
only the sending and receiving ports
can see the traffic. These monitoring
features rarely are present on
consumer-grade switches.
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Two popular methods that are

specifically designed to allow a network
analyst to monitor traffic are:
Port mirroring the switch sends a copy of
network packets to a monitoring network
connection.
SMON "Switch Monitoring" is described by

RFC 2613 and is a protocol for controlling

facilities such as port mirroring.

Another method to monitor may be to connect

a Layer-1 hub between the monitored device

and its switch port. This will induce minor delay,
but will provide multiple interfaces that can be
used to monitor the individual switch port.

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THANK YOU
EVERYONE
.

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