Computer Networks I

ICT 2303

Lesson 1
Introduction to Computer
Networks
In the early days computer systems were
centralised in a single large room.
These rooms were called computer centres.
A large computer was housed in the room and
users brought their work for processing.
What is a Computer Network?
Is a collection of autonomous computers
interconnected by a single technology, either
using cables, telephone line or through a
wireless media to share resources.
Computers are said to be interconnected only if
hey are able to exchange information.
There are different types of networks.
companies
For resource sharing
The goal is to make programs, equipment and data
available to anyone on the network regardless of the
physical location of the resource and the user.
E.g. networked printer, client-server model
As a communication medium
Sending and receiving emails
Group working e.g. people can write a report together
even if they are in different locations.
Videoconferencing
 Employees at distant locations can hold a meting, seeing &
hearing each other & even writing on a virtual blackboard.

For conducting business electronically

Customers can place orders electronically for goods
For e-commerce- companies provide catalogs of their
goods & services online & take orders online. Customers shop
from home.
Uses of Computer Networks in
Homes
For Internet access
To gain access to remote information
 E.g. surfing the web, on-line digital libraries
For person-to-person communication
 E-mail, instant messaging, newsgroups,
 Peer-to-peer in which every person can communicate
with one or more other people; no fixed clients and
servers.
 Telephone calls, video phone, Internet radio
For interactive entertainment
 Video on demand, gaming
For electronic commerce.
 Enables users to inspect catalogs of companies and shop
from home
 Access to financial institutions – paying bills, manage
bank accounts and investiments.
Network Components
Client: The term client defines the device an end user uses to
access a network.
This device might be a workstation, laptop, smart phone with
wireless capabilities, or a variety of other end-user terminal
devices.
Server: A server, as the name suggests, serves up resources
to a network. These resources might include e-mail access as
provided by an e-mail server, web pages as provided by a web
server, or files available on a file server.
Hub: A hub is an older technology that interconnects network
components, such as clients and servers.
Hubs vary in their number of available ports. However, for
scalability, hubs can be interconnected, up to a point.
If too many hubs are chained together, network errors can
result.
A hub does not perform any inspection of the traffic it passes.
Rather, a hub simply receives traffic in a port (that is, a
receptacle to which a network cable connects) and repeats that
traffic out all of the other ports.
Cont…
Switch: Like a hub, a switchinterconnects network
components, and they are available with a variety of port
densities.
However, unlike a hub, a switch does not simply take
traffic in on one port and blast that traffic out all other
ports.
Rather, a switch learns which devices reside off of which
ports.
As a result, when traffic comes in a switch port, the switch
interrogates the traffic to see where it is destined. Then,
based on what the switch has learned, the switch
forwards the traffic out of the appropriate port, and not
out all of the other ports. This dramatically cuts down on
the volume of traffic coursing through your network.
A switch is considered a Layer 2 device, which means that
it makes its forwarding decisions based on addresses that
are physically burned into a network interface card (NIC)
installed in a host(that is, any device that transmits or
receives traffic on a network). This burned-in address is a
Media Access Control(MAC) address.
Cont…
Router: a router is considered to be a Layer 3 device,
which means that it makes its forwarding decisions based
on logical network addresses.
Most modern networks use Internet Protocol(IP)
addressing. Therefore, most routers know what logical IP
networks reside off of which router interfaces.
When traffic comes into a router, the router examines the
destination IP address of the traffic and, based on the
router’s database of networks (the routing table), the
router intelligently forwards the traffic out the appropriate
interface.
Firewall - provides security to networks
Repeater- A repeater is a physical layer device that
receives, amplifies (i.e., regenerates), and retransmits
signals in both directions.
Cont…
Media: Network devices need to be interconnected via
some sort of media.
This media could be copper cabling. It could be a fiber-
optic cable.
Media might not even be a cable, as is the case with
wireless networks, where radio waves travel through the
media of air.
Media varies in its cost, bandwidth capacity, and distance
limitation.
For example, although fibre-optic cabling is more
expensive than unshielded twisted-pair cabling, it can
typically carry traffic over longer distances and has a
greater bandwidth capacity (the capacity to carry a higher
data rate).
Cont…
WAN link:
Today, most networks connect to one or more other
networks.
For example, if a company has two locations, and those
two locations are interconnected (perhaps via a Frame
Relay or Multiprotocol Label Switching [MPLS] network),
the link that interconnects those networks is typically
referred to as a wide-area network(WAN) link.
Bridge: layer 2 device
They are used to connect networks, typically of different
types.
E.g. a wireless bridge allows the connection of devices on a
wired Ethernet network to a wireless network.
Bridges examine the data link addresses to do routing.
Classification of Networks
Networks can be classified based on:
Transmission technology
Scale
Networks
There are two basic types of transmission technology that
are widely used in networks:
Broadcast Networks
Point-to-point
Broadcast Networks
Have a single communication channel that is shared by all
the machines on the network.
Packets sent by any machine are received by all the
others.
An address field within the packet species the recipient.
Upon receiving a packet, a machine checks the address
field.
If the packet is intended for the receiving machine, that
machine processes the packet; if the packet is for some
other machine, it is just ignored.
Some broadcast systems support transmission to a subset
of the machines. This is called Multicasting.
Cont…
Point-to-point Networks
Consist of many connections between individual pairs of
machines.
Multiple routes of different lengths are possible, so a
machine has to find a good one to transmit data.
Usually larger networks are point-to-point
Point-to-point transmission with one sender and one
receiver is sometimes called Unicasting.
Classification based on
Scale/Geography
Personal Area Network
Meant for one person e.g. a wireless network
connecting a computer with its mouse, keyboard and
printer.
Local Area Networks (LAN)
Privately owned networks within a single building or
campus of up to a few kilometres.
connect personal computers & workstations in
company offices to share resources & information
Restricted in size, simplifies network management
May use transmission technology consisting of a cable
to which all machines are attached.
Low delay
Various topologies used e.g. bus, token ring, star
usually administered by a single organization.
Cont…
Metropolitan Area Network
Covers a city
Wide Area Network
Spans a large geographical area, often a country or
continent.
Contains hosts connected by a subnet
Hosts are owned by customers whereas the
communication subnet is owned & operated by an ISP
or a Telephone company.
The purpose of the subnet is to carry messages from
host to host.
The subnet consists of transmission lines and
switching elements.
Transmission lines move bits between machines.
 i.e. copper wire, optical fibre, radio links etc.
Switching elements (routers)are specialised
computers that connect three or more transmission
lines.
Cont…

Switching elements
When data arrive on an incoming line, the switching
element must choose an outgoing line on which to
forward them.
WANs contain numerous transmission lines, each one
connected to a pair of routers.
If two router that do not share a transmission line wish to
communicate, they do so indirectly via other routers.
When a packet is sent from one router to another via one
or more intermediate routers, the packet is received at
each intermediate router in its entirety, stored there until
the required output line is free, and then forwarded.
This is called Store-and-forward or Packet-switched
subnet .
Cont…
Packet Switched WAN
When a process on some host has a message to send to a
process on some other host, the sending host first cuts
the message into packets.
Each one bearing a number in the sequence.
The packets are then injected into the network one at a
time in quick succession.
The packets are transported individually over the network
Individual blocks containing addressing information
indicate both their origination point and their final
destination.
The devices within the network itself are unaware of the
content of the individual packets, only visible is the
address of the final destination and the next device in the
path to that destination.
At the receiving host the packets are reassembled into
the original message and delivered to the receiving
process.
Cont…
Another example of WAN is the satellite
system.
Each router has an antenna through which it can send
and receive.
Routers can hear the output from the satellite and
transmissions from other routers.
Satellite networks are broadcast.
Networks Defined by Topology
Physical Versus Logical Topology
Logical topology determines The actual traffic flow in
the network
Physical topology determines how components are
physically interconnected in the network.
Bus Topology
Uses a cable running through the area requiring connectivity.
Devices that need to connect to the network then tap into
this nearby cable.
Ring Topology
Traffic flows in a circular fashion around a closed network
loop.
A ring topology sends data, in a single direction, to each
connected device in turn, until the intended destination
receives the data.
E.g. Token ring, FDDI
Cont…
Star Topology
Star topology has a central point from which all attached
devices radiate.
Star topology is the most popular physical LAN topology
in use today, with an Ethernet switch at the center of the
star.
Unshielded Twisted-Pair cable (UTP) are used to connect
from the switch ports to clients.
Hub-and-Spoke Topology
When interconnecting multiple sites (for example,
multiple corporate locations) via WAN links, a hub-and-
spoke topology has a WAN link from each remote site (a
spoke site) to the main site (the hub site).
Mesh Topology
Used in WAN where each site has a link to any other site.