INTRODUCTION TO NETWORKING
Introduction
This first post will provide an overview about how simple network is built for data communication. Computers connect to networks either by using a modem (external or internal) or a network interface card (NIC). After that we will consider different types of networks available and compare them. Data transmission takes place over some kind of transmission medium. You will also learn about different transmission media commonly in use today. The 4th section will discuss two basic methods of building a network (i.e. client server networking and peer-peer networking) in an office or a work place for resource sharing.
Data Communication
Data communication is the study of how the digital data is transferred. To put it simply, it is the transfer of bits in serial form outside a computer through a transmission medium such as wires, or electro-magnetic waves. It is important to pay more attention to the word outside, because managing data when it is moving between computers is different to, and harder than, managing it within the computer.
1. Computer Networks
1. Computer Networks
A computer consists of lots of resources such as memory, processor and disk-space that is not being used even when somebody is using it. Further, there are external resources such as a printer or a modem that can be used by several people if they can be stored. If the computers are connected or if many people can access the resources of a computer, idling time of resources can be minimized. Two or more computer systems connected together using data communication links is called a network. The concept of networking came primarily for sharing resources such as processor power, hard disk space and external resources like printers etc.
Figure below shows a simple network of 4 computers and a printer.
Figure below shows a simple network of 4 computers and a printer.
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| Figure 1.1: Computers networked for sharing resources |
Why do we use networking?
- To share expensive resources such as printers, disk/storage drives, computational power, data sets, application programs etc.
- To permit the distribution of workload Concurrent/parallel computing, client-server computing, Fault tolerance
- To facilitate the transfer of information
Database transactions, Electronic mail, Networked distribution of data-archives
