MODULE 1

INTRODUCTION TO NETWORK
• In information technology, a network is a series of points or nodes interconnected by
communication paths.
• Networks can interconnect with other networks and contain sub networks.
• A computer network can be defined as an interconnection of different computers which
can interconnect to each other and they can communicate with each other with the help
of various communication methods.
• A computer network is simply two or more computers connected together so they can
exchange information. A small network can be as simple as two computers linked
together by a single cable.

TYPES OF NETWORKS
1. Local area Network. (LAN)

2. Metropolitan area Network (MAN).

3. Wide area Network (WAN).

LAN (Local area Network):

• A LAN connects network devices over a relatively short distance.
• A local area network (LAN) is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a
home, office, or small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport.
• LANs are also typically owned, controlled, and managed by a single person or
organization.
• The defining characteristics of LANs include their usually higher data-transfer rates,
smaller geographic area, and lack of a need for leased telecommunication lines.
• They also tend to use certain connectivity technologies, primarily ethernet and token
ring.

MAN (Metropolitan area Network):

• It is defined for less than 50 km area and provides regional connectivity typically within a
campus or small geographical area
• It is designed to extend over an entire city.
 • It may be a single network such as a cable television network or it maya be
interconnection of different LANs in a large network. So that resources can be shared
LAN to LAN as well as device to device.
• A WAN may be wholly owned and operated by a private company, such as local
telephone company. Many telephone companies provided a popular MAN service called
Switched Multi-Megabit Service (SMDS).
• In this, routers are used to interconnect different LAN together.

WAN (Wide area Network):

• A wide area network is a computer network that covers a bread area i.e., any network
whose communications links cross metropolitan, regional, or national boundaries.
• WANs are used to connect LANs and other types of networks together, so that users and
computers in one location can communicate with users and computers in other
locations.
• Many WANs are built for one particular organization and are private
• WANs are often build using leased lines.

Other Types of Area Networks

NETWORK TOPOLOGIES
The geometric arrangement of a computer system is called topology.

• It defines how these components are connected and interact with each other. Common
topologies are bus, ring, star, and hybrid.
 1. Bus topology

• all nodes on the LAN are connected by one linear cable, which is called the shared
medium, single cable, backbone cable.
• Every node on this cable segment sees transmissions from every other station on the
same segment.
• It is bi-directional. It is a multi-point connection and a non-robust topology because if
the backbone fails the topology crashes.

2. Star topology
The star topology is used in Local Area Networks where multiple connections are required for a
network.

• all the nodes in a star topology are connected to a central connection point Hub, or
central node called the Hub is responsible for the transmission of the data.
• If one device wants to send data to another device, it’s first to send the info to the hub
then the hub transmits that data to the designated device.
• If the central hub fails, all computers connected to that hub would be disconnected

• More expensive than linear bus topologies because of the cost of the hubs, etc.
3. Ring topology
• The ring topology is a type of computer network configuration where each network
computer and device is connected to each other forming a large circle.
• Each packet is sent around the ring until it reaches its final destination
4. MESH TOPOLOGY
5. TREE TOPOLOGY
BENEFITS OF NETWORKS
• Sharing files and drives: If your computers are connected to a network, each computer
can make its resources available to other computers in your office by sharing them over
the network. Instead of working in isolation as you do on a single computer not linked to
a network, you can work collectively, within a system that shares resources among a
group of computer users.
• Sharing a printer: if you have a printer connected to your computer, you can share the
printer with other computers on the network. Then instead of buying a printer for every
computer, all the computers can print across the network to the printer.

INTERNET

• The term internet has been coined from two terms, interconnection and network.
• A network is simply a group of computers that are connected together for sharing
information and resources. Several such networks have been joined together across the
world to form what is called as the internet. Thus, it is a network of networks.
 • In this various server are interconnected to each other via internet.
• The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the
Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices.
History of internet

INTRANET

• An intranet is a private computer network that uses internet protocol technologies to

securely share any part of an organization’s information or operational systems within
that organization.
• It may host multiple private websites and constitute an important component and focal
point of internal communication and collaboration.
• an intranet is used by different organizations and only members/staff of that
organization have access to this.
• This is also used to protect your data and provide data security to a particular
organization, as it is a private network and does not leak data to the outside world.

BENEFITS OF INTRANET

• Workforce productivity: Intranets can help users to locate and view information faster
and use applications relevant to their roles and responsibilities. It also helps to improve
the services provided to the users.
EXTRANET
MODES OF CONNECTING TO INTERNET
1. Dial – Up Connection: is established between your computer and the ISP server using a
modem.
• A dial-up Connection is a cheap and traditional connection that is not preferred these
days as this type of connection is very slow.
• To access the internet connection in the dial-up connection we need to dial a phone
number on the computer and that’s why it requires a telephone connection. It requires a
modem to set up a dial-up connection, which works as interference between your
computer and the telephone line.
• In this connection, we can use either an internet connection or a telephone at a time.

Advantages:

• It requires very modest hardware and software resources.

• Less expensive means of connecting to internet

Disadvantages:

2. Direct or Dedicated Connection:

• This option provides full internet access by dedicating a leased phone line between your
network and on internet service provider.
• The direct connection is very expensive and difficult to set up and manage. Therefore,
only organizations are the best suited to take advantage of this solution. Most individual
neither requires the dedicated links nor can they afford it.
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS(ISP)
• ISP is a business or company that sells internet access to the computers.
• An ISP provides access to a spectacular selection of informational resources on the
internet. It provides information, or content, within its own perimeter.
• An ISP exists primarily to provide access to the global internet.
• An ISP maintains a full-time, high-speed connection to the internet that is subdivided to
provide every individual with an inexpensive connection.
• The Internet is provided through a variety of channels, including cable, DSL, fiber optics,
dial-up, and wireless, with most ISPs offering all options. Most large telecommunication
companies, such as mobile and cable companies, are ISPs.
• Tier 1 ISPs - Global Backbone Providers: Tier 1 ISPs, often known as global backbone
providers, are the world's highest level of internet service providers. They own and
operate the infrastructure that serves as the internet's backbone.
• Tier 2 ISPs - Regional Carriers: Tier 2 ISPs, also known as regional carriers, provide
internet services to a specific region or area. They connect Tier 1 networks to individual
users or small businesses in different locations.
• Tier 3 ISPs - Local Providers: Tier 3 ISPs are the smallest players in the ISP hierarchy, but
they play an essential role in providing internet access to local communities. These
providers cater to a specific customer base within a limited geographical area that can
range from small towns to individual neighborhoods.

The List—this website allows you to locate provider that offers the access speed and related
services that meet your need and budget.

The ultimate web ISP list—this website allows you to locate all matching ISPs within any area
code.

Selection of an ISP

There are several things to look for when selecting an ISP location, stability, customer service,
performance and price
 1. Location: it can actually be more expensive to dial an ISP within your state than to dial
one out of state if you cannot locate an ISP in your local calling area. Whenever possible,
select an ISP that is only a local phone call away.
2. Stability: its always best if you can open an account with an ISP that has an established
track record.
3. Customer service: if you are new to the internet, customer service or technical support
is particularly important. The internet is a wide area and are open to many new cyber
trails in the process, so it might be comforting to know that you can call friendly ISP’s
tech support people for helping hand.
4. Performance
5. Pricing
ESTABLISHING AN INTERNET ACCOUNT

DOMAIN NAME SERVICE

• The domain name service is a hierarchical, distributed method of organizing the name
space of the internet.
• The DNS administratively groups host into a hierarchy of authority that allows
addressing and other information to be widely distributed and maintained.
• A key advantage to the DNS is that using it eliminates dependence on a centrally
maintained file that maps host names to addresses.
• DNS is supported via set of network - resident servers, also called domain name servers
• DNS, or Domain Name System, is a critical component of the internet's infrastructure,
acting as the phonebook of the internet. It translates human-friendly domain names into
IP addresses that computers use to identify each other on the network. Without DNS,
we would have to remember complex numerical IP addresses to access websites, which
is not practical.
• DNS is a directory service that provides a mapping between the name of a host on the
network and its numerical address.

When you enter a domain name like yahoo.com in your browser, your computer performs a
DNS lookup to find the corresponding IP address.
 • Local Cache Check: Your computer first checks its local DNS cache to see if it has recently
resolved the domain name.
• DNS Server: If the cache doesn't have the record, the query is sent to a DNS server,
typically provided by your ISP or a third-party like Google.
• Root DNS Server: If the recursive server doesn't have the record, it queries one of the
root DNS servers, which directs the query to the appropriate Top-Level Domain (TLD)
server.
• TLD Server: The TLD server, responsible for managing domains under a specific TLD
(like .org ), points to the authoritative DNS server for the domain.
• Authoritative DNS Server: This server has the actual DNS record for the domain and
responds with the IP address.
• Result Returned: The IP address is sent back through the chain to your computer,
allowing your browser to connect to the website's server.

INTERNET ADDRESSES
• An internet address, also known as an internet protocol (IP)

• An IP address is the identifier that enables your device to send or receive data packets
across the internet. It holds information related to your location and therefore making
devices available for two-way communication.
• The internet requires a process to distinguish between different networks, routers, and
websites. Therefore, IP addresses provide the mechanism of doing so, and it forms an
indispensable part in the working of the internet.
• An IP address is represented by a series of numbers segregated by periods(.). This
address is just a string of numbers written in a certain format.
• It is generally expressed in a set of numbers for example 192.155.12.1. Here each
number in the set is from 0 to 255 range. Or we can say that a full IP address ranges
from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. And these IP addresses are assigned by IANA (known
as Internet Corporation for Internet Assigned Numbers Authority).

IP Versions:
IPv4: Internet Protocol version 4. It consists of 4 numbers separated by the dots. Each number
can be from 0-255 in decimal numbers. (32 bit). But computers do not understand decimal
numbers, they instead change them to binary numbers which are only 0 and 1. Therefore, in
binary, this (0-255) range can be written as (00000000 – 11111111). Since each number N can
be represented by a group of 8-digit binary digits. So, a whole IPv4 binary address can be
represented by 32-bits of binary digits. In IPv4, a unique sequence of bits is assigned to a
computer, so a total of (2^32) devices approximately = 4,294,967,296 can be assigned with
IPv4.
IPv4 can be written as: 189.123.123.90
IP CLASSES (Addressing Schemes)

• IP addresses are assigned according to a scheme intended to allow large networks to

manage small parts of the IP address space.

IPv6

• Due to the rapid increase in the growth of internet and the limitations of its design,
there will be a point when no more free addresses are available for connecting to new
hosts.
• Switching to a different protocol version that does not have these problems of course
requires for a better version to be available. Version 6 of internet protocol (IPv6) fulfills
future demands on address space and also addresses other features such as privacy,
encryption and better support of mobile computing.
• Bigger address space: the bigger address space IPv6 offers is the most obvious
enhancement it has over IPv4. While today’s architecture is based on 32- bit wide
addresses, the new version ha 128- bit technology available for addressing.
• Mobility: with IPv6 you have support for roaming between different networks, with
global notification when you leave one network and enter the other one.
• Security: IPv6 protocol stacks are required to include IPSec. IPSec allows authentication,
encryption, and compression of IP traffic.
INTERNET TOOLS

1. File Transfer Protocol (FTP):

• FTP supports two modes of data transfer: plain text and binary. You set the mode in
the FTP client.
2. Search tools

3. Telnet
• TELNET or telecommunication network is a network protocol which is mostly used to
connect to remote machines over a local area network or in the internet.

• Telnet can be used to connect to virtually any machine that listens on ports. In other
words, you can connect to any machine that has certain ports open. Once connected
to a machine, you need to issue UNIX based commands to interact with the remote
service.
MODEMS

ROUTERS, NIC CARDS

COMMUNICATION SOFTWARES