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Networking Basics
Begin your study of computer networking basics by exploring these key concepts and essential technologies
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of computers and devices interconnected by communications channels that facilitate communications and allows sharing of resources and information among interconnected devices.
Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics such as medium used to transport the data, communications protocol used, scale, topology, organizational scope, etc.
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of computers and devices interconnected by communications channels that facilitate communications and allows sharing of resources and information among interconnected devices.
Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics such as medium used to transport the data, communications protocol used, scale, topology, organizational scope, etc.
Well-known examples of communication media are
- Twisted pair copper wire cable,
- optical fiber, and
- various wireless technologies, such as Wireless LAN.
Examples of different network scales are:
- A local area network (LAN), which is usually a small network constrained to a small geographic area. An example of a LAN would be a computer network within a building.
- A metropolitan area network (MAN), which is used for medium-sized area such as city or a state.
- A wide area network (WAN), which is a network covering a large geographic area.
Examples for organizational scope are
- An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any part of an organization's information or network operating system within that organization
- An extranet is a computer network that allows controlled access from the outside, for specific business or educational purposes.
- The Internet, which has world-wide significance as a network which allows virtually any device to communicate with any other if connected to it. Many aspects of the operation of the Internet, especially the protocols used, have their specifications defined in documents called RFCs.