m A network is a collection of computers connected

to each other. The network allows computers to

communicate with each other and share resources
and information. The Advance Research Projects
Agency (ARPA) designed "Advanced Research
Projects Agency Network" (ARPANET) for the
United States Department of Defense. It was the
first computer network in the world in late 1960's
and early 1970's.
m Resource Sharing
m Data Sharing
m Communication
m Security
m Expanded Computer Usage
m ased on their scale, networks can be classified
as Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network
(WAN), Metropolitan Area Network (MAN),
Personal Area Network (PAN),Virtual Private
Network (VPN) etc.
m Computer networks can also be classified
according to the hardware and software
technology that is used to interconnect the
individual devices in the network, such as Optical
fiber, Ethernet, Wireless LAN
m Computer networks may be classified according to
the functional relationships which exist among the
elements of the network, e.g., Active Networking,
Client-server and Peer-to-peer (workgroup)
architecture.
m Computer networks may be classified according to
the network topology upon which the network is
based, such as us network, Star network, Ring
network, Mesh network, Star-bus network, Tree or
Hierarchical topology network.
 Personal Area Network (PAN)
 Local Area Network (LAN)
 Campus Area Network (CAN)

 Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)

 Wide Area Network (WAN)

 Internetwork

 Intranet

 Extranet

 Internet
m A personal area network (PAN) is a computer
network used for communication among computer
devices close to one person. Some examples of
devices that are used in a PAN are printers, fax
machines, telephones, PDAs and scanners.
m This is a network covering a small geographic
area, like a home, office, or building. Current LANs
are most likely to be based on Ethernet
technology.

m Wired LAN
m Wireless LAN
m This is a network that connects two or more LANs
but that is limited to a specific and contiguous
geographical area such as a college campus,
industrial complex, office building, or a military
base. A CAN may be considered a type of MAN
(metropolitan area network), but is generally
limited to a smaller area than a typical MAN
m A Metropolitan Area Network is a network that
connects two or more Local Area Networks or
Campus Area Networks together but does not
extend beyond the boundaries of the immediate
town/city. Routers, switches and hubs are
connected to create a Metropolitan Area Network.
m A WAN is a data communications network that
covers a relatively broad geographic area (i.e. one
city to another and one country to another country)
and that often uses transmission facilities provided
by common carriers, such as telephone
companies.
m Any interconnection among or between public,
private, commercial, industrial, or governmental
networks may also be defined as an internetwork.

m Intranet
m Extranet
m Internet
m An intranet is a set of networks, using the Internet
Protocol and IP-based tools such as web
browsers and file transfer applications, that is
under the control of a single administrative entity.
m An extranet is a network or internetwork that is
limited in scope to a single organization or entity
but which also has limited connections to the
networks of one or more other trusted organization
or entities.
m The Internet is a specific internetwork. It consists
of a worldwide interconnection of governmental,
academic, public, and private networks based
upon the networking technologies of the Internet
Protocol Suite. The Internet is also the
communications backbone underlying the World
Wide Web (WWW).
Point-to-point
us
Star
Ring
Mesh
Tree
m The simplest topology is a permanent link
between two endpoints. Switched point-to-point
topologies are the basic model of conventional
telephony. The value of a permanent point-to-point
network is the value of guaranteed, or nearly so,
communications between the two endpoints
m Linear bus
m The type of network topology in which all of the
nodes of the network are connected to a common
transmission medium
m !istributed bus
m The type of network topology in which all of the
nodes of the network are connected to a common
transmission medium which has more than two
endpoints that are created by adding branches to
the main section of the transmission medium
m The type of network topology in which each of the
nodes of the network is connected to a central
node with a point-to-point link in a 'hub' and
'spoke' fashion, the central node being the 'hub'
and the nodes that are attached to the central
node being the 'spokes'
m The type of network topology in which each of the
nodes of the network is connected to two other
nodes in the network and with the first and last
nodes being connected to each other, forming a
ring
m The value of fully meshed networks is proportional
to the exponent of the number of subscribers,
assuming that communicating groups of any two
endpoints, up to and including all the endpoints, is
approximated by Reed's Law.
m ºull ºully connected
m The type of network topology in which a central
'root' node (the top level of the hierarchy) is
connected to one or more other nodes that are
one level lower in the hierarchy (i.e., the second
level) with a point-to-point link between each of
the second level nodes and the top level central
'root' node, while each of the second level nodes
that are connected to the top level central 'root'
node will also have one or more other nodes that
are one level lower in the hierarchy (i.e., the third
level) connected to it
Network Interface Cards
Repeaters

Hubs

Bridges

Switches

Routers
m A network card, network adapter or NIC
(network interface card) is a piece of computer
hardware designed to allow computers to
communicate over a computer network. It
provides physical access to a networking medium
and often provides a low-level addressing system
through the use of MAC addresses. It allows users
to connect to each other either by using cables or
wirelessly. The NIC provides the transfer of data in
megabytes.
m A repeater is an electronic device that receives a
signal and retransmits it at a higher power level, or
to the other side of an obstruction, so that the
signal can cover longer distances without
degradation. In most twisted pair ethernet
configurations, repeaters are required for cable
runs longer than 100 meters away from the
computer.
m A hub contains multiple ports. When a packet
arrives at one port, it is copied to all the ports of
the hub for transmission. When the packets are
copied, the destination address in the frame does
not change to a broadcast address.
m A network bridge connects multiple network
segments at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI
model. ridges do not promiscuously copy traffic
to all ports, as hubs do, but learn which MAC
addresses are reachable through specific ports.
Once the bridge associates a port and an address,
it will send traffic for that address only to that port.
ridges do send broadcasts to all ports except the
one on which the broadcast was received.
m A switch is a device that performs switching.
Specifically, it forwards and filters OSI layer 2
datagrams (chunk of data communication)
between ports (connected cables) based on the
MAC addresses in the packets. This is distinct
from a hub in that it only forwards the datagrams
to the ports involved in the communications rather
than all ports connected.
m Routers are networking devices that forward data
packets between networks using headers and
forwarding tables to determine the best path to
forward the packets.
m Twisted pair cables were first used in telephone
systems by Alexander Graham ell in 1881.
m Coaxial cable is a cable consisting of an inner
conductor, surrounded by a tubular insulating layer
typically made from a flexible material with a high
dielectric constant, all of which is then surrounded
by another conductive layer (typically of fine
woven wire for flexibility, or of a thin metallic foil),
and then finally covered again with a thin
insulating layer on the outside.
m An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber
that carries light along its length. ºiber optics is
the overlap of applied science and engineering
concerned with the design and application of
optical fibers. Optical fibers are widely used in
fiber-optic communications, which permits
transmission over longer distances and at higher
data rates than other forms of communications
Domain Name System
The !omain Name System (!NS) is a
hierarchical naming system for computers,
services, or any resource participating in
the Internet. It associates various
information with domain names assigned
to such participants
m !ynamic Host Configuration Protocol (!HCP)
is a protocol used by networked devices (Y
)
to obtain the parameters necessary for operation
in an Internet Protocol network.
m An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical
identification (logical address) that is assigned to
devices participating in a computer network
utilizing the Internet Protocol for communication
between its nodes. Although IP addresses are
stored as binary numbers, they are usually
displayed in human-readable notations, such as
192.168.100.1 (for IPv4), and
2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:1:1 (for IPv6).
m Domain , a common network name under which a
collection of network devices that are organized.
Eg: Computers, hub, Switches, routers
m Active !irectory is a directory service used to
store information about the network resources
across a domain and also centralize the network.
m Protocols are a set of rules and conventions
followed by systems that communicate over a
network.

m FTP
m HTTP
m TCP/IP
m TELNET
m UDP
m ºile Transfer Protocol (ºTP) is a network
protocol used to transfer data from one computer
to another through a network
m Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a
communications protocol. Its use for retrieving
inter-linked text documents (hypertext) led to the
establishment of the World Wide Web.
m The Internet Protocol Suite (commonly TCP/IP)
is the set of communications protocols used for
the Internet and other similar networks. It is
named from two of the most important protocols in
it: the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and
the Internet Protocol (IP), which were the first two
networking protocols defined in this standard.
m Telnet (Telecommunication network) is a network
protocol used on the Internet or local area network
(LAN) connections.

m Telnet provides access to a command-line

interface on a remote machine.
m —ser !atagram Protocol (—!P) is one of the
core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. Using
UDP, programs on networked computers can send
short messages sometimes known as › 
 
(using Datagram Sockets) to one another. UDP is
sometimes called the —niversal !atagram
Protocol.
 Application server
 Database server
 File Server
 Print server
 Proxy server
m An application server, in an n-tier architecture, is
a server that hosts an API to expose business
logic and business processes for use by third-
party applications.
m A database server is a computer program that
provides database services to other computer
programs or computers, as defined by the client-
server model.
m A file server is a computer attached to a network
that has the primary purpose of providing a
location for the shared storage of computer files
(such as documents, sound files, photographs,
movies, images, databases, et cetera) that can be
accessed by the workstations that are attached to
the computer network.
m A print server, or printer server, is a computer or
device that is connected to one or more printers
and to client computers over a network, and can
accept print jobs from the computers and send the
jobs to the appropriate printers.
m A proxy server is a server (a computer system or
an application program) that services the requests
of its clients by forwarding requests to other
servers.
m Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) is the name
given by Microsoft to a feature of its Windows
operating system (as of Windows 98 Second
Edition and later) for sharing a single Internet
connection on one computer between other
computers on the same local area network. It
makes use of DHCP and Network address
translation (NAT).
m The Kpen Systems Interconnection Basic
Reference Model (OSI Reference Model or KSI
Model) is an abstract description for layered
communications and computer network protocol
design. It was developed as part of the Open
Systems Interconnection (OSI) initiative.
m The Physical Layer is the first level in the seven-
layer OSI model of computer networking. It
translates communications requests from the Data
Link Layer into hardware-specific operations to
effect transmission or reception of electronic
signals.
m The Data Link Layer provides the functional and
procedural means to transfer data between
network entities and to detect and possibly correct
errors that may occur in the Physical Layer.
m The Network Layer provides the functional and
procedural means of transferring variable length
data sequences from a source to a destination via
one or more networks, while maintaining the
quality of service requested by the Transport
Layer. The Network Layer performs network
routing functions, and might also perform
fragmentation and reassembly, and report delivery
errors.
m The Transport Layer provides transparent transfer
of data between end users, providing reliable data
transfer services to the upper layers. The
Transport Layer controls the reliability of a given
link through flow control, segmentation/
desegmentation, and error control.
m The Session Layer controls the
dialogues/connections (sessions) between
computers. It establishes, manages and
terminates the connections between the local and
remote application.
m The Presentation Layer establishes a context
between Application Layer entities, in which the
higher-layer entities can use different syntax and
semantics, as long as the Presentation Service
understands both and the mapping between them.
The presentation service data units are then
encapsulated into Session Protocol Data Units,
and moved down the stack.
m The application layer is the OSI layer closest to
the end user, which means that both the OSI
application layer and the user interact directly with
the software application. This layer interacts with
software applications that implement a
communicating component.