Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE

Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
AND
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

UNIT – II
CONFIGURING COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS

Computer Networks is an interconnected collection of independent computers, which can

exchange information.

Networking
• The generic term node or host refers to any device on a network
• Data transfer rate. The speed at which data is transferred from one location on a
network to another.
• Computer networks in the computer world, called the client / server model, have
opened up an entire frontier.

• 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.

Types of Computer Network

1. Local Area network (LAN) - A network that connects a relatively small number of
machines in a relatively close geographical area.
Various configurations, called topologies, have been used to administer LANs.
a. Ring topology. A configuration that connects all nodes in a closed loop that
transmits messages in one direction.
b. Star topology. A configuration that centers around one node that is connected to
all others and through which all messages are sent.
c. Bus topology. All nodes are connected to a single line of communications
conveying messages in both directions.
d. Mesh topology. is a local area network topology in which the infrastructure nodes
connect directly, dynamically and non-hierarchically.
e. Tree topology. • You can add more computers to a specific location in a tree
topology by extending Star Networks connected to the main Backbone Cable. • If
one of the computers on the network fails, the operation of the entire computer
network is unaffected

Figure 1. A bus technology called Ethernet has become the industry standard for
local-area networks.

2. Personal Area Network (PAN) – A network arranged within an individual person,

typically within a range of 10 meters.
 Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE

Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
AND
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
• Personal Area Network is used for connecting the
computer devices of personal use is known as
Personal Area Network.
• Thomas Zimmerman was the first research scientist
to bring the idea of the Personal Area Network.
There are two types of Personal Area Network:
a. Wireless Personal Area Network: Wireless
Personal Area Network is developed by simply using
wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth. It is a
low range network.
b. Wired Personal Area Network: Wired Personal Area Network is created by using the
USB
Examples of Personal Area Network:
a. Body Area Network: Body Area Network is a network that moves with a person.
For example, a mobile network moves with a person.
b. Offline Network: An offline network can be created inside the home, so it is also
known as a home network. A home network is designed to integrate the devices
such as printers, computer, television but they are not connected to the internet.
c. Small Home Office: It is used to connect a variety of devices to the internet and to a
corporate network using a VPN.
3. Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) –
A metropolitan area network is a network that
covers a larger geographic area by
interconnecting a different LAN to form a
larger network.
Uses of Metropolitan Area Network:
• MAN is used in communication
between the banks in a city.
• It can be used in an Airline Reservation.
• It can be used in a college within a city.
• It can also be used for communication
in the military.

4. Wide Area Network (WAN) – A network that connects two or more local-area
networks over a potentially large geographic distance such as states or countries.
Internetwork- is a collection of individual network connected by intermediate networking
devices, that functions as a single large network.xwsqsa
• Communication between networks is called internetworking.
• As we know it today, the Internet is essentially the ultimate wide-area network,
spanning the entire globe.

Examples of Wide Area Network:

• Mobile Broadband: A 4G network is widely used across a region or country.
• Last mile: A telecom company is used to provide the internet services to the
customers in hundreds of cities by connecting their home with fiber.
 Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE

Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
AND
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
• Private network: A bank provides a private network that connects the 44 offices. This
network is made by using the telephone leased line provided by the telecom company.

All these Networks categories are classified according to their size. The word scale is
used to specify their inter processor size, which indicates the distance formed by the
network. The following table classifies these Networks by scale.

10m Room Local Area Network

100m Building Local Area Network
1Km Campus Local Area Network
10Km City Metropolitan Area Network
100Km Country Wide Area Network
1000Km Continent Wide Area Network
10000Km Planet Internet

It is very important to classify these networks by their distance, since different

techniques are used at different scales.

Internet Connection
• 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.

There are different technologies available which can be used 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.

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)

Packet Switching
• Messages are separated into fixed-sized, numbered packets to increase the reliability
of transmitting information over a common transmission network.
• Routers are network devices used to channel packets between networks.

Figure 3.

Messages sent by
 Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE

Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
AND
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
packet switching

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

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.

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.

Firewall
A computer and its software which serves a network as a special gateway, protecting it
from unauthorized access.
• Filters the incoming network traffic, checks the validity of the messages as much as
possible and possibly denies some messages altogether.
• Enforces an organization’s access control policy.

Figure 4. A firewall protecting a LAN

Network Addresses
A network address is any logical or physical address that uniquely distinguishes a computer or
telecommunications network from a network node or device. It is a numeric / symbolic number or
address assigned to any device that seeks access to a network, or is part of it. For example, in the IP
address 192.168.1.0, the network address is 192.168.1.

• Hostname – A unique identification that specifies a particular computer on the Internet.

For example, “neust.edu.ph” and “ntc.gov.ph”
• Network software translates a hostname into its corresponding IP address.
For example, 205.39.145.18
• An IP address can be split into
➢ network address, which specifies a specific network
➢ host number, which specifies a particular machine in that network
 Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE

Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
AND
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Figure 5. An IP address is stored in four bytes

Network address translation (NAT) is a technique

in which the source and/or destination addresses of
IP packets are rewritten as they pass through a
router or firewall

NAT is also a good way to protect your network. You

can use NAT to hide the IP addresses of servers and
computers on your trusted and optional networks
from computers on the external network..

Domain Name System (DNS) is a directory

service that provides a mapping between the
name of a host on the network and its
numerical address.
• DNS is required for the functioning of the internet.
• Each node in a tree has a domain name, and a full domain name is a sequence of
symbols specified by dots.
• DNS is a service that translates the domain name into IP addresses. This allows the
users of networks to utilize user-friendly names when looking for other hosts instead
of remembering the IP addresses.
• For example, suppose the NEUST site at Edu had an IP address of 123.174.156.20,
most people would reach this site by specifying neust.Edu.com. Therefore, the
domain name is more reliable than IP address.
DNS is a TCP/IP protocol used on different platforms. The domain name space is divided
into three different sections: generic domains, country domains, and inverse domain.

Generic Domains
• It defines the registered hosts according to their generic behavior.
• Each node in a tree defines the domain name, which is an index to the DNS database.
• It uses three-character labels, and these labels describe the organization type.

Label Description
aero Airlines and aerospace companies
biz Businesses or firms
com Commercial Organizations
coop Cooperative business Organizations
edu Educational institutions
gov Government institutions
 Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE

Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
AND
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

info Information service providers

int International Organizations
mil Military groups
museum Museum & other nonprofit organizations
name Personal names
net Network Support centers
org Nonprofit Organizations
pro Professional individual Organizations

Country Domain
The format of country domain is same as a generic domain, but it uses two-character
country abbreviations (e.g., ph for the Philippines) in place of three characters
organizational abbreviations.

Inverse Domain
The inverse domain is used for mapping an address to a name. When the server has
received a request from the client, and the server contains the files of only authorized clients.