CPEN 100 - COMPUTER NETWORKS
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Internet. A global computer network that links
information and people.
Computer Network a system consisting of
computers and devices connected via
communications devices and media (e.g. switches or
router) that allows users to, share resources or
exchange files. It is a means by which computers can
“talk” to one another through the use of cables,
telephone lines, radio waves, satellites or infrared
light beams that connect them.
Figure 1. A Typical Computer Network
Data Communication refers to the study on how
devices, not necessarily computers, can transfer
digital information (commonly known as “signals”) via
wired or wireless transmission medium which include:
For Electricity: copper wires coaxial cable.
Twisted pair (UTP and STP)
For Light: Infrared through air, laser through
fiber optic cable
For Electromagnetic Radiation: broadcast
radio (radio frequencies), microwave, satellite
Telecommunications comes from a contraction of
the Greek “tele”, which means “far” and Latin root
“communicare”, which means “discipline that studies
the principles of transmitting information and the
methods by which it is delivered”. It refers to any
process that permits the exchange of information
(e.g. voice, data, text, images and video signals) over
great distances, in the form of electromagnetic
signals electromagnetic system (e.g. satellite
systems, broadband systems, microwave systems,
digital networks, telephone networks, radio stations,
LAN and wireless networks).
Computer Network Advantages
1. Sharing information. Sharing is the real key
to networking. By means of network,
computers can share information – from files,
to programs, to hardware devices or
peripherals, regardless of the physical
location of the resource and the user. With
sharing, time, effort and money could be
saved.
2. Sharing Hardware Resources. By means of
network, electronic transfer is faster since
computers can share peripherals (e.g. printer
and hard disk drives) with any other computer.
3. Sharing Software Resources – by means of
network, programs or applications used by
computers to perform any useful function or to
carry out daily basis task can be installed and
configured centrally on a server and shared
by all. With this, more time and disk space are
saved.
4. Preserve Information – another advantage
is the increase in security. By means of
networking, regular backups of data that are
kept on the server as well as on other
connected computers on the network will not
immediately result in loss of information, since
these data are still accessible from other
computers whenever required.
5. Communication – by means of the network,
the office can be a paperless environment
since users can instantly send messages to
others and even check whether or not their
messages have been received.
Requirements for internet connection
1. Physical connection – it is used to transfer
signals between PCs within the local network
and to remote devices on the internet.
2. Logical connection – it uses a standard
called protocols or a set of protocols lie
TCP/IP
3. Application that interprets the data and
display the information – it works with
protocols to send and receive data across the
Internet such as web browser, File Transfer
Protocol (FTP) and etc.
“Ping” command utility is used to verify network
connectivity. It works by sending multiple IP packets
to the specified destination and waiting for the packet
replies. If the ping receives an echo reply, the
CPEN 100 - COMPUTER NETWORKS
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING
connectivity is verified. If it fails, however, it will show
messages.
The following examples describe the types of ping
tests that are commonly used in a network
 Ping 127.0.0.1 – it is called an internal
loopback test.
 Ping the IP address of host computer – it
verifies connectivity to the host.
 Ping default-gateway IP address – it verifies
whether the router that connects the local
network to other networks can be reached.
 Ping remote destination IP address – it
verifies connectivity to a remote host.
Computers are one of the major categories of
network “building blocks,” thus it is important to be
able to identify and describe their major components,
including both hardware and software which are
involved with the internal processing.
Computer Components:
1. Motherboard – it is the main printed circuit
board of a computer.
2. Central Processing Unit (CPU) – it is the
part of a computer that controls all the other
components. It fetches instructions from
memory and decodes them. This action may
cause it to transfer to or from memory or to
activate peripherals to perform input or output.
3. Bus – it is a collection of wires through which
data is transmitted from one part of a
computer to another. It connects all the
internal computer components to the CPU.
The Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) and
the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)
are the two types of buses.
4. Random Access Memory (RAM) – it is also
known as read-write computer memory that
has new data written into it as well as stored
data read from it. A drawback of RAM is that
it requires electrical power to maintain data
storage. If the computer is turned OFF or
loses power, all data stored in RAM is lost,
unless the data was saved to disk.
5. Read-Only-Memory (ROM) – it is a computer
memory on which data has been prerecorded.
Once data has been written onto a ROM chip,
it cannot be removed and can only be read.
6. Power Supply – it is a component that
supplies power to a computer and converts
AC power to DC and breaks it into the
amounts needed by different devices.
7. Hard Disk Drive (HDD) – it is a device that
reads and writes data on a hard disk. Two
main types of drive interfaces are current in
today’s computers: Integrated Drive
Electronics (IDE) drive and the Small
Computer System Interface (SCSI;
pronounced scuzzy) drive.
8. Operating System – it is a software that
controls the operation of the computer
(Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, and so on.)
Components of a computer that required access from
the outside
1. External Ports – these are connectors to
which other devices attached, including the
following:
 Serial Port – it connects to
asynchronous serial devices, such as
an external modem.
 Video Port – it connects to an external
video monitor.
 Ethernet Port – it connects to an
Ethernet network data cable.
 Universal Serial Bus (USB) Port – It
is a standard connection port
designed for connecting computer
peripherals such as mouse, keyboard,
joysticks, printers, scanners, digital
cameras, flash drives, and external
HDDs.
 PS/2 Port – it is an external keyboard
and mouse connection.
2. Compact disc read – only memory (CD-
ROM) drive – it is a device into which CD can
be inserted and the data read from it.
3. Compact disc read – write memory (CD-
RW) drive it is a device into which a CD can
be inserted and the data read from it; if
writable CD media are used, data can also be
stored on it.
4. Floppy Disk Drive – it is a disk that can read
and write to floppy disks, usually in the “3 ½”
1.44-megabyte (MB) or “5 1/4“1.2 MB format.
CPEN 100 - COMPUTER NETWORKS
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING

 Medium Type (UTP, STP, 10Base2,

10Base5, 10BaseF)
 Transport Speed (1 Mbps, 4 Mbps, 10 Mbps,
16 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps)
Types of network administration software are as
follows:
1. Network Operating System (NOS) – this
coordinates the activities of multiple
computers across a network through the
following remote services below. These
remote services enable concurrent access to
share resources, either by multiple clients
(peer-to-peer networking operating system)
or server systems responding to a client
request (client/ server networking operating
system)
 Access to remote printers – the
NOS allows one to manage the usage
of printer as to when will it be used or
what printer is connected to a certain
Figure 2. An Idealized Computer: Information Flow computer. It also allows how print jobs
are queued and managed and
Information that flows through the bus:
recognizes when devices are not
1. Boot Instructions – these are stored in available to the network.
ROM, until they are sent out.  Access to files on remote systems
2. Software Applications – these are stored in – the NOS allows one to determine
RAM after they have been loaded. who can and can’t access a certain
3. RAM and ROM – These two constantly talk to data/ file.
the CPU through the bus.  Access to remote applications and
4. Application information – these are stored resources (e.g. Internet) – the NOS
in RAM while applications are being used. allows one to make the network
5. Saved Information – This flows from RAM to resources transparent and available to
some form of storage device. the user.
6. Exported Information – this flows from RAM  Routing services (including
and the CPU, through the bus and expansion support for major networking
slots, to the printer, video card, sound card, or protocols) – the NOS allows one to
network card. determine what and where to send a
certain data.
Network INTERFACE CARD (NIC) (a.k.a LAN
 System and security monitoring –
Adapter) is an expansion board that provides network
the NOS provides proper security
communication capabilities to and from a computer
against viruses, hackers, and data
system.
corruption.
When selecting a network card, the following are to  Basic Network Administration
be considered: utilities (e.g. SNM – Simple Network
Management Protocol) – The NOS
 Bus type (PCI, ISA, EISA, and so on)
enables one to perform task involving
 Network Topology (bus, ring, star) managing resources and users.
CPEN 100 - COMPUTER NETWORKS
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING

2. Network Monitoring Software – this can be

simple or sophisticated, and either free or
purchasable. Its two general categories are as
follows:
 Protocol Analyzers – this captures
packets of data that are transmitted on
the network between computers.
These also “decode” the data so that
one can read it and determine what is
going on during the transmission.
 Sniffing Software (a.k.a. packet
sniffers) – this operates similarly as a
telephone wiretap. Through this, one
can observe the communication
between designated computers on the
network to determine how the
transmission is progressing, and at the
same time what is being transmitted.
3. Network management Software – this
allows one to perform the following task
below. Examples of this are the System
Figure 3. Shows the American Standard Code for
Management Server (SMS) manufactured by
Information Interchange(ASCII) Chart.
Microsoft, Tivoli Enterprise by IBM and the
OpenView of Hewlett-Packard. ASCII - it displays the binary number representation
 Documenting the devices on a of many keyboard and control characters.
network and the status of each device.
 Managing software licenses.
 Controlling computers on the network
remotely.
 Receiving notifications of network
problems.
Decimal Number System – it is the number system
that we are all familiar with.
Binary Number System – the foundation of any
computer machine, the “off state” stands for the
numeric symbol “0”, while the “on state” stands for the
numeric symbol “1”. These 0s and 1s represent the
two possible states of an electronic component and
are referred the two possible states of an electronic
component and are referred to as binary digits or bits.
The network device addresses as well as the
Internet use this binary system to define their location
on the network.