11 Types of Networks

1. Personal Area Network (PAN)

The smallest and most basic type of network made up of a wireless modem, a
computer or two, phones, printers, tablets, etc., and revolves around one person in
one building. Typically found in small offices or residences and are managed by one
person or organization from a single device.

2. Local Area Network (LAN)

LANs connect groups of computers and low-voltage devices together across short
distances (within a building or between a group of two or three buildings in close
proximity to each other) to share information and resources.

Using routers, LANs can connect to wide area networks (WANs, explained below) to
rapidly and safely transfer data.

3. Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)

Functioning like a LAN, WLANs make use of wireless network technology, such as Wi-
Fi. Typically seen in the same types of applications as LANs, these types of networks
don’t require that devices rely on physical cables to connect to the network.

4. Campus Area Network (CAN)

Larger than LANs, but smaller than metropolitan area networks, these types of
networks are typically seen in universities, large K-12 school districts or small
businesses. They can be spread across several buildings that are fairly close to each
other, so users can share resources.

5. Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)

Incorporate elements from both types of networks. MANs span an entire geographic
area (typically a town or city, but sometimes a campus). Ownership and maintenance
are handled by either a single person or company (a local council, a large company,
etc.).

6. Wide Area Network (WAN)

Slightly more complex than a LAN, a WAN connects computers together across longer
physical distances. This allows computers and low-voltage devices to be remotely
 connected to each other over one large network to communicate even when they’re
miles apart.

7. Storage-Area Network (SAN)

These types of networks don’t rely on a LAN or WAN. Instead, they move storage
resources away from the network and place them into their own high-performance
network. SANs can be accessed in the same fashion as a drive attached to a server.
Types of storage-area networks include converged, virtual and unified SANs.

8. System-Area Network (also known as SAN)

This term is fairly new within the past two decades. It is used to explain a relatively
local network that is designed to provide high-speed connection in server-to-server
applications (cluster environments), storage area networks (called “SANs” as well) and
processor-to-processor applications. The computers connected on a SAN operate as a
single system at very high speeds.

9. Passive Optical Local Area Network (POLAN)

A point-to-multipoint LAN architecture, POLAN uses optical splitters to split an optical

10. Enterprise Private Network (EPN)

These types of networks are built and owned by businesses that want to securely
connect its various locations to share computer resources.

11. Virtual Private Network (VPN)

By extending a private network across the Internet, a VPN lets its users send and
receive data as if their devices were connected to the private network – even if they’re
not. Through a virtual point-to-point connection, users can access a private network
remotely.

The Internet Protocol

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the method or protocol by which data is sent from one
computer to another on the Internet. Each computer (known as a host) on the Internet
has at least one IP address that uniquely identifies it from all other computers on the
Internet.
 The most widely used version of IP today is Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4).
However, IP Version 6 (IPv6) is also beginning to be supported. IPv6 provides for
much longer addresses and therefore for the possibility of many more Internet users.
IPv6 includes the capabilities of IPv4 and any server that can support IPv6 packets
can also support IPv4 packets.

IN ADDITION (COMPARISON TO MACHINE ADDRESS)

"An IP address is a 32-bit number that identifies each sender or receiver of information
that is sent in packets across the Internet. An IP address has two parts: the identifier
of a particular network on the Internet and an identifier of the particular device (which
can be a server or a workstation) within that network. On the Internet itself -- that is,
between the routers that moves packets from one point to another along the route --
only the network part of the address is looked at." -- Steve Spence, Contributor

A "machine address" is sometimes known as the "host number" or "host address."

URL: The Internet Address

URL is the abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator and is defined as the global
address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. We all use URLs
to visit webpages and other resources on the web. The URL is an address that sends
users to a specific resource online, such as a webpage, video or other document or
resource.

What Are the Parts of a URL?

The first part of the URL is called a protocol identifier and it indicates what protocol to
use, and the second part is called a resource name and it specifies the IP address or
the domain name where the resource is located. The protocol identifier and the
resource name are separated by a colon and two forward slashes. For example, the
two URLs below point to two different files at the domain webopedia.com. The first
specifies an executable file that should be fetched using the FTP protocol; the second
specifies a webpage that should be fetched using the HTTP protocol:

Web Address is a URL with HTTP/HTTPS

The term "web address" is a synonym for a URL that uses the HTTP or HTTPS
protocol. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) was developed by Tim Berners-Lee in
1994 and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) URI working group. Today, the
format of the URL has not changed. The URL format is specified in RFC 1738 Uniform
Resource Locators (URL). In Programming: The URL Class. Note that in object-
oriented programming, such as Java, programs can use a class (a category of objects)
called URL.