Module 6: Networking

Networking
• Computer network A collection of computing
devices that are connected in various ways in
order to communicate and share resources
Usually, the connections between computers
in a network are made using physical wires or
cables
However, some connections are wireless, using
radio waves or infrared signals

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 Networking
• The generic term node or host refers to any
device on a network
• Data transfer rate The speed with which data
is moved from one place on a network to
another
• Data transfer rate is a key issue in computer
networks

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 Networking
• Computer networks have opened up an entire
frontier in the world of computing called the
client/server model

15-4 Figure 15.1 Client/Server interaction

 Networking
• File server A computer that stores and
manages files for multiple users on a network
• Web server A computer dedicated to
responding to requests (from the browser
client) for web pages

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 Types of Networks
• Local-area network (LAN) A network that
connects a relatively small number of
machines in a relatively close geographical
area

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 Types of Networks
• Various configurations, called topologies, have been
used to administer LANs
– Ring topology A configuration that connects all nodes in a
closed loop on which messages travel in one direction
– Star topology A configuration that centers around one
node to which all others are connected and through which
all messages are sent
– Bus topology All nodes are connected to a single
communication line that carries messages in both
directions

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 Types of Networks

Figure 15.2 Various network topologies

• A bus technology called Ethernet has become the industry

standard for local-area networks
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 Types of Networks
• Wide-area network (WAN) A network that
connects two or more local-area networks over a
potentially large geographic distance
Often one particular node on a LAN is set up to serve as a
gateway to handle all communication going between that
LAN and other networks
Communication between networks is called
internetworking
The Internet, as we know it today, is essentially the
ultimate wide-area network, spanning the entire globe

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 Types of Networks

• Metropolitan-area network (MAN) The

communication infrastructures that have been
developed in and around large cities

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 So, who owns the Internet?
Well, nobody does. No single person or
company owns the Internet or even controls it
entirely. As a wide-area network, it is made up
of many smaller networks. These smaller
networks are often owned and managed by a
person or organization. The Internet, then, is
really defined by how connections can be
made between these networks.

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 Types of Networks

Figure 15.1 Local-area networks connected across a distance to

create
15-12 a wide-area network
 Internet Connections
• Internet backbone A set of high-speed
networks that carry Internet traffic
These networks are provided by companies
such as AT&T, GTE, and IBM
• Internet service provider (ISP) A company
that provides other companies or individuals
with access to the Internet

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 Internet Connections
• There are various technologies available that you can use to
connect a home computer to the Internet
– A phone modem converts computer data into an analog audio
signal for transfer over a telephone line, and then a modem at the
destination converts it back again into data
– A digital subscriber line (DSL) uses regular copper phone lines to
transfer digital data to and from the phone company’s central
office
– A cable modem uses the same line that your cable TV signals come
in on to transfer the data back and forth

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 Internet Connections
• Broadband A connection in which transfer speeds
are faster than 128 bits per second
– DSL connections and cable modems are broadband
connections
– The speed for downloads (getting data from the Internet
to your home computer) may not be the same as uploads
(sending data from your home computer to the Internet)

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 Packet Switching
• To improve the efficiency of transferring information over a
shared communication line, messages are divided into fixed-
sized, numbered packets
• Network devices called routers are used to direct packets
between networks
Figure 15.4
Messages
sent by
packet
switching

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 Open Systems
• Proprietary system A system that uses technologies
kept private by a particular commercial vendor
One system couldn’t communicate with another, leading to
the need for
• Interoperability The ability of software and hardware
on multiple machines and from multiple commercial
vendors to communicate
Leading to
• Open systems Systems based on a common model
of network architecture and a suite of protocols used
in its implementation

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 Open Systems
• The International
Organization for
Standardization (ISO)
established the Open
Systems Interconnection
(OSI) Reference Model
• Each layer deals with a
particular aspect of
network communication
Figure 15.5 The layers of the OSI Reference Model

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 Network Protocols
• Network protocols are layered such that each
one relies on the protocols that underlie it
• Sometimes referred to as a protocol stack

Figure 15.6 Layering of key network protocols

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 TCP/IP
• TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol
TCP software breaks messages into packets, hands
them off to the IP software for delivery, and then
orders and reassembles the packets at their
destination
• IP stands for Internet Protocol
IP software deals with the routing of packets
through the maze of interconnected networks to
their final destination

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 TCP/IP (cont.)
• UDP stands for User Datagram Protocol
– It is an alternative to TCP
– The main difference is that TCP is highly reliable,
at the cost of decreased performance, while UDP
is less reliable, but generally faster

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 High-Level Protocols
• Other protocols build on the foundation
established by the TCP/IP protocol suite
– Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
– File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
– Telnet
– Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (http)

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 MIME Types
• Related to the idea of network protocols and
standardization is the concept of a file’s MIME
type
– MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extension
– Based on a document’s MIME type, an application
program can decide how to deal with the data it is
given

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 MIME Types

Figure 15.7
Some protocols
and the ports
they use

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 Firewalls
• Firewall A machine and its software that
serve as a special gateway to a network,
protecting it from inappropriate access
– Filters the network traffic that comes in, checking
the validity of the messages as much as possible
and perhaps denying some messages altogether
– Enforces an organization’s access control policy

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 Firewalls

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Figure 15.8 A firewall protecting a LAN
 Network Addresses
• Hostname A unique identification that
specifies a particular computer on the Internet
For example
matisse.csc.villanova.edu
condor.develocorp.com

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 Network Addresses
• Network software translates a hostname into
its corresponding IP address
For example
205.39.145.18

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 Network Addresses
• An IP address can be split into
– network address, which specifies a specific network
– host number, which specifies a particular machine in that
network

Figure 15.9
An IP address is
stored in four
bytes

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 Domain Name System
• A hostname consists of the computer name followed
by the domain name
• csc.villanova.edu is the domain name
– A domain name is separated into two or more sections
that specify the organization, and possibly a subset of an
organization, of which the computer is a part
– Two organizations can have a computer named the same
thing because the domain name makes it clear which one
is being referred to

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 Domain Name System
• The very last section of the domain is called its top-
level domain (TLD) name

15-31 15.10 Top-level domains, including some relatively new ones

Figure
 Domain Name System
• Organizations based in countries other than the
United States use a top-level domain that
corresponds to their two-letter country codes

Figure 15.11
Some of the top-level domain
names based on country codes

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 Domain Name System
• The domain name system (DNS) is chiefly
used to translate hostnames into numeric IP
addresses
– DNS is an example of a distributed database
– If that server can resolve the hostname, it does so
– If not, that server asks another domain name
server

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