It is important to lay a foundation before you build a general-purpose

computer network. If you're looking to build a network that has the potential to
grow to global proportions and support increasingly diverse applications, first
you need to learn what available technologies can help you to reach your
specific goals.

This free networking PDF, "Foundation," Chapter 1 from the Computer

Networks: A Systems Approach, Fifth Edition, will teach you what building
materials you will need to construct a network from scratch. It explores the
requirements that different applications and communities place on the
network, introduces network architecture basics and options, discusses the
networking and IT groups that should be consulted in network design,
examines key elements in computer networks and identifies the key metrics
used to evaluate the computer network performance.

After reading the summary below, download the computer

networking PDF of Chapter 1: "Foundation," from Computer Networks: A
Systems Approach, Fifth Edition, by Larry L. Peterson and Bruce S. Davie
(Morgan Kaufmann, 2012).

Applications over your network

A network must provide connectivity among a set of computers. While some
networks limit the number of connected machines, others grow as large as a global
wide area network (WAN). Chapter 1 of Computer Networks: A Systems Approach,
Fifth Edition hopes to explain why networks are designed the way they are to help
readers better understand how to build a network from the ground up. This computer
networking PDF walks you through how to build a network that supports application
diversity.

Network requirements to accommodate

application needs
Efficiency is the key requirement of computer networks, which is why networks use
packet switching as their main strategy. It's too simplistic to view a computer network
as simply delivering packets among a collection of computers, however. A network
should be thought of as the way to deliver a set of applications distributed over those
computers. Success includes both understanding the applications' requirements and
recognizing the limitations of the underlying technology. The challenge is to fill the
gap between what the application needs and what the technology can provide.

Networks do not remain fixed and must be able to evolve to accommodate

technological changes, and networking and IT professionals must be able to manage
them. Designing a network to meet those requirements isn't easy. The most basic
requirements for a network are that they must provide general, cost-effective, fair and
robust connectivity among a large number of computers.

Network architecture as the blueprint

Network architectures are general blueprints that guide the design and implementation
of your network. The idea of abstraction, which hides your networking details behind
a well-defined interface. The idea of abstraction is to make a model that can capture
an important aspect of the system, but the challenge is to identify abstractions that
simultaneously provide a service that proves useful in a large number of situations.
Abstractions naturally lead to layering. The idea is that you start with the services the
underlying hardware offers, then add a sequence of layers, each of which provides a
higher level of service. Layering helps IT professionals build a network into more
manageable components.

Implementing network software

One of the things that has made the Internet such a success is the fact that software
running in general-purpose computers provides so much of its functionality, which
means new functionality can be added easily. As a result, new applications and
services can deployed in a heartbeat. Knowing how to deploy network software is an
essential part of understanding computer networks. Specific instructions and visual
representations for both the client and the server can be found in the networking PDF.

Network performance
Naturally, computer networks are expected to perform well, and it's vital to
understand the factors that can impact network performance. Network performance is
measured by bandwidth and latency. A network's bandwidth is the number of bits that
can be transmitted over the network in a certain period of time. Latency is how long it
takes a message to travel from one end of a network to the other and is measured in
time. Equations found in this chapter can help you properly assess the performance of
your computer LAN or WAN network.

To read the full book chapter, download this free computer networking PDF
from Computer Networks: A Systems Approach.

About the book

Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, Fifth Edition, teaches the key principles of
computer networks, using the Internet as a primary example to explain protocols and
networking technologies. The book encourages readers to think, through a number of
perspectives, about how a network can fit into a larger, complex system of interaction.
About the authors:
Author Larry Peterson is the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science and
Director of the Princeton-hosted PlanetLab Consortium. His research focuses on the
design and implementation of networked systems.

Author Bruce Davie is a visiting lecturer at MIT and chief service provider architect at
Nicira Networks. As a fellow at Cisco Systems, he led a team of architects responsible
for Multiprotocol Label Switching and IP Quality of Service. He is also an active
participant in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and is
currently SIGCOMM chair.