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Introduction

The document provides a history of computer networking, beginning with early efforts to connect individual computers in the 1960s. Researchers developed packet switching to allow computers to share resources more efficiently, laying the foundation for future communication technologies. This led to the creation of ARPANET in the late 1960s, considered the precursor to the modern Internet. In the 1970s, local area networks (LANs) emerged and spread from academia to workplaces and homes. The document then discusses network topology, defining it as the geometric representation of links and nodes, and describing characteristics like average node degree and network diameter.

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16 views

Introduction

The document provides a history of computer networking, beginning with early efforts to connect individual computers in the 1960s. Researchers developed packet switching to allow computers to share resources more efficiently, laying the foundation for future communication technologies. This led to the creation of ARPANET in the late 1960s, considered the precursor to the modern Internet. In the 1970s, local area networks (LANs) emerged and spread from academia to workplaces and homes. The document then discusses network topology, defining it as the geometric representation of links and nodes, and describing characteristics like average node degree and network diameter.

Uploaded by

gelaee
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Introduction

History of Networking

Making devices talk to each other for the purposes of communication is nothing new.
Early forays into telephony such as the telegraph and telephone have since evolved into
more complicated devices, and now a computer can be networked to the Internet, another
PC, or even a home stereo. In the early 1960s, individual computers had to be physically
shared, making the sharing of data and other information difficult. Seeing this was
impractical, researchers developed a way to “connect” the computers so they could share
their resources more efficiently. Hence, the early computer network was born.

Through the then-new communication protocol known as packet switching, a number of


applications, such as secure voice transmission in military channels became possible.
These new circuits provided the basis for the communication technologies of the rest of
the 20th century, and with further refinement these were applied to computer networks.

These networks provided the basis for the early ARPANET, which was the forerunner of
the modern Internet. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) submitted the
proposal for the project on June 3, 1968 which was approved a few weeks later. This
proposal entitled “Resource Sharing Computer Networks” would allow ARPA not only
the further sharing of their data, but would allow them to further their research in a wide
variety of military and scientific fields. After being tested in four locations, the network
spread and the new protocols created for its use evolved into today’s World Wide
Network.

                    In 1977, early PC-based Local Area Networks, or LANs (Local Area
Networks) were spreading and while initially restricted to academics and hobbyists, they
eventually found their way into the workplace and in homes, although the explosion into
the latter two arenas is a relatively recent phenomenon. LAN variants also developed,
including Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) to cover large areas such as a college
campus, and Wide Area Networks (WANs) for university-to-university communication.
With the widespread use of computers in the corporate world, the speed and convenience
of using them to communicate and transfer data has forever altered the landscape of how
people conduct business.

Network Topology

A network consists of multiple computers connected using some type of interface, each
having one or more interface devices such as a Network Interface Card (NIC) and/or a
serial device for PPP networking. Each computer is supported by network software that
provides the server or client functionality. The hardware used to transmit data across the
network is called the media. It may include copper cable, fiber optic, or wireless
transmission. The standard cabling used for the purposes of this document is 10Base-T
category 5 Ethernet cable. This is twisted copper cabling which appears at the surface to
look similar to TV coaxial cable. It is terminated on each end by a connector that looks
much like a phone connector. Its maximum segment length is 100 meters.

The topology of a network is the geometric representation of all links and nodes of a
network—the structure, consisting of transmission links and processing nodes, that
provides communications connectivity between nodes in a network. A link is the physical
transmission path that transfers data from one device to another. A node is a network
addressable device.

Graph theory describes certain characteristics of a network topology such as the average
node degree for robustness (average number of links terminating at a node in a network),
network diameter for size (the longest/shortest path between any two nodes in a network),
number of paths for complexity (total number of paths between all node pairs), and cut
sets for flow (minimum number of removed links to partition a network).

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