Types of Networking

Jyoti Sachan

Student of MBA

I have found some fundamental information about networks. So I am sharing it with you, if you have some more information in addition to it, then please add in it: -

In 1960’s it was decided to develop computer network for the purpose of fast & real time data transfer for the scientific research data, where data was in a very large quantity. The first useful network ARPANET (American Research Project Agency NETwork) was developed in late 60’s. Since then, networking technology has been evolving continuously with a very rapid speed.

Definition of Network: - A group of computers & associated peripheral devices connected by a communicational channel, capable of sharing files & other resources between several users is known as networking.

Networking provides us the facility to share distant resources such as database, processor or software. It provides high reliability by having alternate resources for providing distribution of processing so that load sharing can be achieved. Networks are used to save money by using a network of computer, which is cheaper, that using a single mainframe. A Mainframe is 100 times faster than a PC but thousand times costlier than a PC.

Local Area Network (LAN): - LAN is a group of computers & associated peripheral devices connected by a communication channel, capable of sharing files & other resources between several users. Using LAN we can get the high speed the connections among computers but sacrificing the ability to cover long distance. LAN can operate between 10 Mbps (mega bit per second) to 2 Gbps.

Wide Area Network/ Global Area Network (WAN/ GAN): - A network that connects users across larger distances, often crossing geographical boundaries of cities, states, or countries is known as WAN. WANs normally use public telephone network & satellite links for data transmission. Data transmission rates are bellow 1 Mbps for WAN. It is normally owned by multiple organizations. The transmission time is more for WAN because of longer distances & different transmission medium used.

Virtual Private Network: Many organizations use virtual private networks (VPN) to establish to secure intranet & extranets.

A VPN is a secure network that uses the internet as its main backbone network, but relies on network firewalls, encryption and other security features of its internet and intranet connection and those of participating organizations.

Client Server Networks: Client Sever have become the predominant information architecture of enterprise computing. In a client/server network, end user PC or NC work stations are the clients. They are interconnected by local area network & share application processing with network server, which also manage the network.

Intranet :- An intranet is a network inside an organization that uses internet technologies (such as Web browsers & servers, TCP/IP network protocols, HTML hypermedia document publishing and databases & so on) to provide an internet like environment within the enterprise for information sharing, communications, collaboration, and the support of business process.

An intranet is protected by security measures such as passwords, encryption, and firewalls & thus can be accessed by authorized users through the internet. A companies intranet can also be accessed through the internets of customers, suppliers, and other business partners via extranet links.

Extranet: extranet are the network links that use internet technologies to interconnect the internet of business with intranets of its customers, suppliers and other business partners.

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