What is Data Communications?

The distance over which data moves within a computer may vary from a few thousandths of an inch, as is the case within a single IC chip, to as much as several feet along the backplane of the main circuit board. Over such small distances, digital data may be transmitted as direct, two-level electrical signals over simple copper conductors. Except for the fastest computers, circuit designers are not very concerned about the shape of the conductor or the analog characteristics of signal transmission. Frequently, however, data must be sent beyond the local circuitry that constitutes a computer. In many cases, the distances involved may be enormous. Unfortunately, as the distance between the source of a message and its destination increases, accurate transmission becomes increasingly difficult. This results from the electrical distortion of signals traveling through long conductors, and from noise added to the signal as it propagates through a transmission medium. Although some precautions must be taken for data exchange within a computer, the biggest problems occur when data is transferred to devices outside the computer's circuitry. In this case, distortion and noise can become so severe that information is lost. Data Communications concerns the transmission of digital messages to devices external to the message source. "External" devices are generally thought of as being independently powered circuitry that exists beyond the chassis of a computer or other digital message source. As a rule, the maximum permissible transmission rate of a message is directly proportional to signal power, and inversely proportional to channel noise. It is the aim of any communications system to provide the highest possible transmission rate at the lowest possible power and with the least possible noise.

Network

A network is a group of two or more computer systems linked together. There are many types of computer networks, including: local-area networks (LANs) : The computers are geographically close together (that is, in the same building). wide-area networks (WANs) : The computers are farther apart and are connected by telephone lines or radio waves. campus-area networks (CANs): The computers are within a limited geographic area, such as a campus or military base. metropolitan-area networks MANs): A data network designed for a town or city. home-area networks (HANs): A network contained within a user's home that connects a person's digital devices. In addition to these types, the following characteristics are also used to categorize different types of networks: topology : The geometric arrangement of a computer system. Common topologies include a bus, star, and ring. See the Network topology diagrams in the Quick Reference section of Webopedia. protocol : The protocol defines a common set of rules and signals that computers on the network use to communicate. One of the most popular protocols for LANs is called Ethernet. Another popular LAN protocol for PCs is the IBM token-ring network . architecture : Networks can be broadly classified as using either a peer-to-peer or client/server architecture.

Computers on a network are sometimes called nodes. Computers and devices that allocate resources for a network are called servers. To connect two or more computers together with the ability to communicate with each other.

network software
A general phrase for software that is designed to help set up, manage, and/or monitor computer networks. Networking software applications are available to manage and monitor networks of all sizes, from the smallest home networks to the largest enterprise networks.

What is a network-based application?

When we speak of applications, we simply mean the things a computer or other tool can be used for. You are familiar with many applications, like word processing, email, Web browsing, and spreadsheet processing.

We can distinguish between network and stand-alone applications. For example, if you use Microsoft Word to write a letter and save it on your PC, both the program and the data are stored on your computer. Since your computer does not have to be connected to a network, this is an example of a stand-alone application. In this class, our focus is on network applications -- applications in which either the program you are using or the data you are working with or both reside on a network (often, but not always, the Internet). Network applications use a client-server architecture, where the client and server are two computers connected to the network. The server is programmed to provide some service to the client. The client is typically a desktop, laptop or portable device like an Apple iPhone. The server can be any of these, but is typically a computer in a data center. In most (though not all) network applications, the client computer runs a Web client program like Firefox or Internet Explorer, and the server runs a Web server program like Apache or Internet Information Server. Shared data would be stored on the server or a computer it could access. Note that the user of a network application might be a computer, not a person. For example, a computer might query the server in a vending machine, checking to see if it was low on Doctor Pepper or Coke. Search engine companies like Google run client programs that constantly scan the Web, checking for new pages which can be indexed.

You can see two examples of network applications here. Note that one offers a service, but does not store data and the other offers a service and also stores data.

What is an Internet Application?

Simply put, an Internet application is an interactive, compiled application that can be accessed through a corporate or through the . Internet applications can perform complex business processes on either the client or the server. In a server-based Internet application, the application uses the Internet protocol to receive requests from a client, typically a Web browser, process associated code, and return data to the browser. In Visual Basic Internet programming, you can add active content to Web pages with little effort. Visual Basic Internet applications link Visual Basic code to one or more HTML pages and handle events raised in those pages by interacting with programs on either a client or a server. There are two types of Internet applications in Visual Basic: server-based IIS applications and client-based DHTML applications. The user interface in a Visual Basic Internet application can be a series of HTML pages, a mix of HTML pages and Visual Basic forms, or a Visual Basic form that makes use of special components such as the WebBrowser control to take advantage of some of the power of the Internet. Regardless of the type of user interface, the application handles events, calls methods, and sets and retrieves properties based on elements in the HTML page. The Web pages that make up the user interface for Visual Basic Internet applications are generally produced by a Web designer, rather than a developer. If you prefer to create your own HTML pages you can, but you do not have to. Instead, you can focus on your talents as a Visual Basic programmer by writing Visual Basic code that interacts with and uses HTML. Using your skills as a developer, you can easily produce dynamic, powerful applications for the Web. For example, using Visual Basic Internet technology, you might create an application that can be used entirely on the browser to let salespeople track their status on the road, then link up to the central server when they return to the office. Or, you might create a sophisticated databasedriven system that presents a catalog of selections to your end users, through their browser. Users could choose products from the catalog and your application would run associated Visual Basic code to retrieve product detail from a database recordset and send that information to the user.

Understanding the World Wide Web

This tutorial covers the basics of the World Wide Web, focusing on its technical aspects. After all, the Web is a technological phenomenon. Therefore it's useful to understand some of the fundamentals of how it works.

The world wide web is a system of Internet servers that supports hypertext and multimedia to access several Internet protocols on a single interface. The World Wide Web is often abbreviated as the web or www. The World Wide Web was developed in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee of the European Particle Physics Lab (CERN) in Switzerland. The initial purpose of the Web was to use networked hypertext to facilitate communication among its members, who were located in several countries. Word was soon spread beyond CERN, and a rapid growth in the number of both developers and users ensued. In addition to hypertext, the Web began to incorporate graphics, video, and sound. The use of the Web has reached global proportions and has become a defining element of human culture in an amazingly short period of time.

OSI Model
The OSI Model is a theoretical, seven-layered model of how networks work. The Open Systems Interconnect Model (the OSI Model) is a theoretical model of networking that organizes network functions into seven layers (physical layer, datalink layer, network layer, transport layer, session layer, presentation layer and application layer) and specifies the communication interfaces between the OSI Model's layers and between network endpoints utilizing an OSI Model-based protocol suite. LAYERS:

The OSI Model sorts network communication functions into seven layers Layer functions are not specified and should be transparent to other layers. Layer Communications (how layers communcate with each other) ARE specified in the model Layer behavior should be invisible other layers

Like IBM's SNA, the OSI model was also designed with seven layers:

Application layer Presentation layer Session layer Transport layer Network layer Data Link layer Physical layer