Networks

A computer network is composed of multiple connected computers that

communicate over a wired or wireless medium to share data and other resources.
For instance, a home computer network may consist of two or more computers
that share files and a printer using the network. The size and scalability of any
computer network are determined both by the physical medium of
communication and by the software controlling the communication (i.e., the
protocols).

Classification of computer networks

By network layer

Computer networks may be classified according to the network layer at which

they operate according to some basic reference models that are considered to be
standards in the industry such as the seven layer OSI reference model and the
four layer Internet Protocol Suite model. In practice, the great majority of
networks use the Internet Protocol (IP) as their network layer. Some networks,
however, are using IP Version 6 IPv6, usually in coexistence with IPv4. IPv6 use
is often experimental. It is an interconnection of a group of computers in other
words.

By scale

Computer networks may be classified according to the scale: Personal area

network (PAN), Local Area Network (LAN), Campus Area Network (CAN),
Metropolitan area network (MAN), or Wide area network (WAN). As Ethernet
increasingly is the standard interface to networks, these distinctions are more
important to the network administrator than the end user. Network
administrators may have to tune the network, based on delay that derives from
distance, to achieve the desired Quality of Service (QoS). The primary difference
in the networks is the size.

Controller Area Networks are a special niche, as in control of a vehicle's engine, a

boat's electronics, or a set of factory robots.

By connection method

Computer networks may be classified according to the hardware technology that

is used to connect the individual devices in the network such as Ethernet,
Wireless LAN, HomePNA, or Power line communication.

Ethernets use physical wiring to connect devices. Often, they employ the use of
hubs, switches, bridges, and routers.
Wireless LAN technology is built to connect devices without wiring. These devices
use a radio frequency to connect.

By functional relationship

Computer networks may be classified according to the functional relationships

which exist between the elements of the network, for example Active Networking,
Client-server and Peer-to-peer (workgroup) architectures.

By network topology

Computer networks may be classified according to the network topology upon

which the network is based, such as Bus network, Star network, Ring network,
Mesh network, Star-bus network, Tree or Hierarchical topology network, etc.

Network Topology signifies the way in which intelligent devices in the network
see their logical relations to one another. The use of the term "logical" here is
significant. That is, network topology is independent of the "physical" layout of
the network. Even if networked computers are physically placed in a linear
arrangement, if they are connected via a hub, the network has a Star topology,
rather than a Bus Topology. In this regard the visual and operational
characteristics of a network are distinct.

By protocol

Computer networks may be classified according to the communications protocol

that is being used on the network. See the articles on List of network protocol
stacks and List of network protocols for more information.

Types of networks:
Below is a list of the most common types of computer networks in order of scale.

Personal Area Network (PAN)

A personal area network (PAN) is a computer network used for

communication among computer devices close to one person. Some
examples of devices that may be used in a PAN are printers, fax
machines, telephones, PDAs, or scanners. The reach of a PAN is
typically within about 20-30 feet (approximately 4-6 Meters). PANs can
be used for communication among the individual devices (intrapersonal
communication), or for connecting to a higher level network and the
Internet (an uplink).
Personal area networks may be wired with computer buses such as USB and
FireWire. A wireless personal area network (WPAN) can also be made possible
with network technologies such as IrDA and Bluetooth.

Local Area Network (LAN)

A network covering a small geographic area, like a home, office, or building.

Current LANs are most likely to be based on Ethernet technology. For example, a
library will have a LAN for users to connect to the internet. All of the computers
in the library are connected through a system of hubs and eventually connect to
the internet. The hub is just like what it sounds. A bicycle wheel uses a hub and
spokes - all the spokes connect to a central point - the hub.

LANs use different technologies to link computers together. Depending on the

circumstance, the computers in the network might be connected using cables and
hubs. Other networks might be connected strictly wirelessly. It depends on the
number of PCs that you are trying to connect, the physical layout of your
workspace, and the various needs that you have as you develop your network.

The defining characteristics of LANs, in contrast to WANs (wide area networks),

include their much higher data transfer rates, smaller geographic range, and lack
of a need for leased telecommunication lines. Current LAN technologies generally
operate at speeds up to 10 Gbit/s. This is the data transfer rate. IEEE has projects
investigating the standardization of 100 Gbit/s, and possibly 40 Gbit/s. Inverse
multiplexing is commonly used to build a faster aggregate from slower physical
streams, such as bringing 4 Gbit/s aggregate stream into a computer or network
element with four 1 Gbit/s interfaces.

Campus Area Network (CAN)

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, or
a military base. A CAN, may be considered a type of MAN (metropolitan area
network), but is generally limited to an area that is smaller than a typical MAN.

This term is most often used to discuss the implementation of networks for a
contiguous area. In the past, when layer 2 switching (i.e., bridging (networking)
was cheaper than routing, campuses were good candidates for layer 2 networks,
until they grew to very large size. Today, a campus may use a mixture of routing
and bridging. The network elements used, called "campus switches", tend to be
optimized to have many Ethernet interfaces rather than an arbitrary mixture of
Ethernet and WAN interfaces.
Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)

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, or metropolitan area. Multiple routers,
switches & hubs are connected to create a MAN.

Wide Area Network (WAN)

A WAN is a data communications network that covers a relatively broad

geographic area (i.e. one country to another and one continent to another
continent) and that often uses transmission facilities provided by common
carriers, such as telephone companies. WAN technologies generally function at
the lower three layers of the OSI reference model: the physical layer, the data link
layer, and the network layer.

The highest data rate commercially available, as a single bitstream, on WANs is

40 Gbit/s, principally used between large service providers. Wavelength Division
Multiplexing, however, can put multiple 10 or 40 Gbyte/s streams onto the same
optical fiber.

Global Area Network (GAN)

Global area networks (GAN) specifications are in development by several groups,

and there is no common definition. In general, however, a GAN is a model for
supporting mobile communications across an arbitrary number of wireless LANs,
satellite coverage areas, etc. The key challenge in mobile communications is
"handing off" the user communications from one local coverage area to the next.
In IEEE Project 802, this involves a succession of terrestrial Wireless local area
networks (WLAN) is the [1]. INMARSAT has defined a satellite-based Broadband
Global Area Network (BGAN).

IEEE mobility efforts focus on the data link layer and make assumptions about
the media. Mobile IP is a network layer technique, developed by the IETF, which
is independent of the media type and can run over different media while still
keeping the connection.
Internetwork

Two or more networks or network segments connected using devices that operate
at layer 3 (the 'network' layer) of the OSI Basic Reference Model, such as a router.
Any interconnection among or between public, private, commercial, industrial, or
governmental networks may also be defined as an internetwork.

In modern practice, the interconnected networks use the Internet Protocol. There
are at least three variants of internetwork, depending on who administers and
who participates in them:

• Intranet
• Extranet
• "The" Internet

Intranets and extranets may or may not have connections to the Internet. If
connected to the Internet, the intranet or extranet is normally protected from
being accessed from the Internet without proper authorization. The Internet itself
is not considered to be a part of the intranet or extranet, although the Internet
may serve as a portal for access to portions of an extranet.

Intranet

An intranet is a set of interconnected networks, using the Internet Protocol and

uses IP-based tools such as web browsers, that is under the control of a single
administrative entity. That administrative entity closes the intranet to the rest of
the world, and allows only specific users. Most commonly, an intranet is the
internal network of a company or other enterprise.

Extranet

A extranet is 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 usually, but not necessarily, trusted organizations or entities
(e.g., a company's customers may be provided access to some part of its intranet
thusly creating an extranet while at the same time the customers may not be
considered 'trusted' from a security standpoint). Technically, an extranet may
also be categorized as a CAN, MAN, WAN, or other type of network, although, by
definition, an extranet cannot consist of a single LAN, because an extranet must
have at least one connection with an outside network.

INTERNET

A specific internetwork, consisting of a worldwide interconnection of

governmental, academic, public, and private networks based upon the Advanced
Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) developed by ARPA of the U.S.
Department of Defense – also home to the World Wide Web (WWW) and
referred to as the 'Internet' with a capital 'I' to distinguish it from other generic
internetworks.

Participants in the Internet, or their service providers, use IP Addresses obtained

from address registries that control assignments. Service providers and large
enterprises also exchange information on the reachability of their address ranges
through the Border Gateway Protocol.

Basic Hardware Components

All networks are made up of basic hardware building blocks to interconnect
network nodes, such as Network Interface Cards (NICs), Bridges, Hubs, Switches,
and Routers. In addition, some method of connecting these building blocks is
required, usually in the form of galvanic cable (most commonly Category 5 cable).
Less common are microwave links (as in IEEE 802.11) or optical cable ("optical
fiber").

Network Interface Cards

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
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.

Repeaters

A repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it at a

higher level or higher power, or onto the other side of an obstruction, so that the
signal can cover longer distances without degradation.

Because repeaters work with the actual physical signal, and do not attempt to
interpret the data being transmitted, they operate on the Physical layer, the first
layer of the OSI model.

Hubs

A hub contains multiple ports. When a packet arrives at one port, it is copied the
packets to all the ports of the hub. When the packets are copied, the destination
address in the frame does not change to a broadcast address. It does this in a
rudimentary way, it simply copies the data to all of the Nodes connected to the
hub. [2]
Bridges

A network bridge connects multiple network segments at the data link layer
(layer 2) of the OSI model. Bridges do not promiscuously copy traffic to all ports,
as does a hub. but learns 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. Bridges do send broadcasts to all ports except the one
on which the broadcast was received.

Bridges learn the association of ports and addresses by examining the source
address of frames that it sees on various ports. Once a frame arrives through a
port, its source address is stored and the bridge assumes that MAC address is
associated with that port. The first time that a previously unknown destination
address is seen, the bridge will forward the frame to all ports other than the one
on which the frame arrived.

Bridges come in three basic types:

1. Local bridges: Directly connect local area networks (LANs)

2. Remote bridges: Can be used to create a wide area network (WAN) link
between LANs. Remote bridges, where the connecting link is slower than
the end networks, largely have been replaced by routers.
3. Wireless bridges: Can be used to join LANs or connect remote stations to
LANs

Switches

Switches are a marketing term that encompasses routers and bridges, as well as
devices that may distribute traffic on load or by application content (e.g., a Web
URL identifier). Switches may operate at one or more OSI layers, including
physical, data link, network, or transport (i.e., end-to-end). A device that operates
simultaneously at more than one of these layers is called a multilayer switch.

Overemphasizing the ill-defined term "switch" often leads to confusion when first
trying to understand networking. Many experienced network designers and
operators recommend starting with the logic of devices dealing with only one
protocol level, not all of which are covered by OSI. Multilayer device selection is
an advanced topic that may lead to selecting particular implementations, but
multilayer switching is simply not a real-world design concept.
Routers

Routers are the networking device that forwards data packets along networks by
using headers and forwarding tables to determine the best path to forward the
packets. Routers work at the network layer (layer 3) of the OSI model. Routers
also provide interconnectivity between like and unlike media.[3] This is
accomplished by examining the Header of a data packet.[4] They use routing
protocols such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) to communicate with each
other and configure the best route between any two hosts. A router is connected
to at least two networks, commonly two LANs or WANs or a LAN and its ISP's
network. Some DSL and Cable Modems have been integrated with routers for
home consumers.

Building a simple computer network

A simple computer network may be constructed from two computers by adding a
network adapter (Network Interface Controller (NIC)) to each computer and then
connecting them together with a special cable called a crossover cable. This type
of network is useful for transferring information between two computers that are
not normally connected to each other by a permanent network connection or for
basic home networking applications. Alternatively, a network between two
computers can be established without dedicated extra hardware by using a
standard connection such as the RS-232 serial port on both computers,
connecting them to each other via a special crosslinked null modem cable.

Practical networks generally consist of more than two interconnected computers

and generally require special devices in addition to the Network Interface
Controller that each computer needs to be equipped with. Examples of some of
these special devices are hubs, switches and routers.

Ancillary equipment used by networks

To keep a network operating, to diagnose failures or degradation, and to
circumvent problems, networks may have a wide-ranging amount of ancillary
equipment.

Providing Electrical Power

Individual network components may have surge protectors - an appliance

designed to protect electrical devices from voltage spikes. Surge protectors
attempt to regulate the voltage supplied to an electric device by either blocking or
shorting to ground voltage above a safe threshold.[3]

Beyond the surge protector, network elements may have uninterruptible power
supplies (UPS), which can be anywhere from a line-charged battery to take the
element through a brief power dropout, to an extensive network of generators
and large battery banks that can protect the network for hours or days of
commercial power outages.

A network as simple as two computers linked with a crossover cable has several
points at which the network could fail: either network interface, and the cable.
Large networks, without careful design, can have many points at which a single
failure could disable the network.

When networks are critical the general rule is that they should have no single
point of failure. The broad factors that can bring down networks, according to the
Software Engineering Institute [5] at Carnegie-Mellon University:

1. Attacks: these include software attacks by various miscreants (e.g.,

malicious hackers, computer criminals) as well as physical destruction of
facilities.
2. Failures: these are in no way deliberate, but range from human error in
entering commands, bugs in network element executable code, failures of
electronic components, and other things that involve deliberate human
action or system design.
3. Accidents: Ranging from spilling coffee into a network element to a
natural disaster or war that destroys a data center, these are largely
unpredictable events. Survivability from severe accidents will require
physically diverse, redundant facilities. Among the extreme protections
against both accidents and attacks are airborne command posts and
communications relays[6], which either are continuously in the air, or take
off on warning. In like manner, systems of communications satellites may
have standby spares in space, which can be activated and brought into the
constellation.

Dealing with Power Failures

One obvious form of failure is the loss of electrical power. Depending on the
criticality and budget of the network, protection from power failures can range
from simple filters against excessive voltage spikes, to consumer-grade
Uninterruptible Power Supplies(UPS) that can protect against loss of commercial
power for a few minutes, to independent generators with large battery banks.
Critical installations may switch from commercial to internal power in the event
of a brownout,where the voltage level is below the normal minimum level
specified for the system. Systems supplied with three-phase electric power also
suffer brownouts if one or more phases are absent, at reduced voltage, or
incorrectly phased. Such malfunctions are particularly damaging to electric
motors. Some brownouts, called voltage reductions, are made intentionally to
prevent a full power outage.

Some network elements operate in a manner to protect themselves and shut

down gracefully in the event of a loss of power. These might include noncritical
application and network management servers, but not true network elements
such as routers. UPS may provide a signal called the "Power-Good" signal. Its
purpose is to tell the computer all is well with the power supply and that the
computer can continue to operate normally. If the Power-Good signal is not
present, the computer shuts down. The Power-Good signal prevents the
computer from attempting to operate on improper voltages and damaging itself

To help standardize approaches to power failures, the Advanced Configuration

and Power Interface (ACPI) specification is an open industry standard first
released in December 1996 developed by HP, Intel, Microsoft, Phoenix and
Toshiba that defines common interfaces for hardware recognition, motherboard
and device configuration and power management.

Monitoring and Diagnostic Equipment

Networks, depending on their criticality and the skill set available among the
operators, may have a variety of temporarily or permanently connected
performance meaasurement and diagnostic equipment. Routers and bridges
intended more for the enterprise or ISP market than home use, for example,
usually record the amount of traffic and errors experienced on their interfaces.

Diagnostic equipment, to isolate failures, may be nothing more complicated than

a spare piece of equipment. If the problem disappears when the spare is manually
replaced, the problem has been diagnosed. More sophisticated and expensive
installations will have spare elements that can automatically replace a failed unit.
Failures can be made transparent to user computers with techniques such as the
Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), as specified in RFC 3768.