types of networking

There are mainly three types of networking based on their size

·         Local Area Network (LAN)

·         Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)

·         Wide area network (WAN)

LAN (Local Area Network)

A LAN is a computer network which spans over a small geographical area such as home, building, office, etc. In LAN, computers are placed relatively close. Since computers are located within small distance, they do not need special devices and cables to connect with each other.

MAN (Metropolitan area networks)

A MAN is a computer network which connects two or more LAN networks within same city. When due to distance connecting two LANs is not possible, MAN network is used. It is larger than LAN but smaller than WAN. It deploys special devices and cables to connect the LANs.

WAN (Wide Area Network)

WAN is a computer network which spans over a large geographical area such as state, region, country etc. WANs are typically used to connect two or more LANs or MANs which are located relatively very far from each other. To provide connectivity, this network uses special devices, cables and technologies.

Networking concept

Let’s know about basics of Networking concept. In the broadcast sense a

 network is any interconnected group of people or things capable of sharing meaningful information with one another. In a technology context, network is usually short for "computer network" or "data network" and implies that computers are the things sharing the meaningful information.

The network you have at home uses the same networking technologies, protocols and services that are used in large corporate networks and on the Internet. The only real difference between an home network and a large corporate network is the size. A home network will have between 1 and 20 devices and a corporate network will have many thousands.

Networks can be wired or wireless with most networks being a mixture of both. There are many different ways network nodes can be connected together. This isn’t normally a consideration in small networks but has networks get larger it becomes more important.

Common connection technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc are designed to work using a particular network topology. When designing networks and choosing connection protocols having an understanding of these topologies is important.

Common are:

·         Bus

·         Ring

·         Mesh

·         Star

·         Hybrid

Each of these topologies has advantages and disadvantages this Network topologies article has a really good overview of each topology along with advantages and disadvantages.

Early Ethernet networks used a bus structure, modern Ethernet networks and Wifi networks. use a star bus (hybrid) structure.

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local area network

A local area network (LAN) is a computer network covering a small local area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings such as a home, office, or college.

A local area network (LAN) is a system for linking private telecommunications equipment, as in a building or cluster of buildings.

Computer network covering a small local area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings such as a home, office, or college
A computer network covering a small geographic area, like a home, office, or group of buildings. The defining characteristics of LANs, in contrast to Wide Area Networks (WANs), include their much higher data transfer rates, smaller geographic range, and lack of a need for leased telecommunication lines 

• Storage Area Networks — Separate network handling storage needs — Detaches storage tasks from specific servers — Shared storage facility across high-speed network — Hard disks, tape libraries, CD arrays — Improved client-server storage access — Direct storage to storage communication for backup

• High speed office networks — Desktop image processing — High capacity local storage

• Backbone LANs — Interconnect low speed local LANs — Reliability — Capacity — Cost

define wan

How do you define WAN? A computer network that spans a relatively large geographical area. A WAN consists of two or more local-area networks (LANs). Computers connected to a wide-area network often connected through public networks, such as the telephone system. They can also be connected through leased lines or satellites.

Wide Area Network: Examples of WAN. Local area networks are connected to one another through a device called router. There may be used many router to connect large amount of LANs. The big example of wide area network is internet. On internet we transfer files from one computer to other.

The WAN port in a WiFi router is essentially connecting you to the real "internet". The cable coming out of modem, or if a PPPoE connection, a simple RJ45 ethernet cable are to be plugged in the WAN port. The WAN cable transmits the data from Internet to "Subnet" created by your router.

what is network

What is network? To make a network, you need nodes and connections (sometimes called links) between them. Linking up the nodes means making some sort of a temporary or permanent connection between them. In the last decade or so, wireless connections have become one of the most popular ways of doing this, especially in homes. In offices, wired connections are still more commonplace—not least because they are generally faster and more secure and because many newer offices have network cabling already in place.

Apart from computers, peripherals, and the connections between them, what else do you need? Each node on a network needs a special circuit known as a network card (or, more formally, a network interface card or NIC) to tell it how to interact with the network. Most new computers have network cards built in as standard. If you have an older computer or laptop, you may have to fit a separate plug-in circuit board (or, in a laptop, add a PCMCIA card) to make your machine talk to a network. Each network card has its own separate numeric identifier, known as a MAC (media access control) code or LAN MAC address. A MAC code is a bit like a phone number: any machine on the network can communicate with another one by sending a message quoting its MAC code. In a similar way, MAC codes can be used to control which machines on a network can access files and other shared resources. For example, I've set up my wireless link to the Internet so that only two MAC codes can ever gain access to it (restricting access to the network cards built into my two computers). That helps to stop other people in nearby buildings (or in the street) hacking into my connection or using it by mistake.

The bigger you make a network, the more extra parts you need to add to make it function efficiently. Signals can travel only so far down cables or over wireless links so, if you want to make a big network, you have to add in devices called repeaters—effectively signal boosters. You might also need bridges, switches, and routers—devices that help to link together networks (or the parts of networks, which are known as segments), regulate the traffic between them, and forward traffic from one part of a network to another part.

Network types

Computer network types can be categorized by scale or range, connection method, functional relationship, network topology or specialized function, among others. We will focus on the most commonly used classification: by scale or physical size.PAN (Personal Area Network)

Purpose

PAN networks link devices such as smartphones, tablets, PDAs, printers, laptops or desktops, by cable, for data transmission within

LAN (Local Area Network)

Yes, known as WLAN network (Wireless Local Area Network) the nodes are connected through Wi-Fi technology or Bluetooth and can reach a distance of up to 20 km. 

MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)

Purpose

MAN networks are similar but larger than LAN networks (in fact MANs connect LANs to one another at high speed).
These networks are usually designed for towns and cities.

WAN (Wide Area Network)

Purpose

A WAN network is an unlimited set of LAN and MAN networks connected to each other.

GAN (Global Area Network)

Purpose

GAN networks are composed of different interconnected WAN networks, the best example of this type of network is the global positioning system (GPS).

what is a wan

what is a wan? A wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network that extends over a large geographical area for the primary purpose of computer networking. Wide area networks are often established with leased telecommunication circuits

WANs do not just necessarily connect physically disparate LANs. A CAN, for example, may have a localized backbone of a WAN technology, which connects different LANs within a campus. This could be to facilitate higher bandwidth applications or provide better functionality for users in the CAN.

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. Others, built by Internet service providers, provide connections from an organization's LAN to the Internet. WANs are often built using leased lines. At each end of the leased line, a router connects the LAN on one side with a second router within the LAN on the other. Leased lines can be very expensive. Instead of using leased lines, WANs can also be built using less costly circuit switching or packet switching methods.