Networking

• A network is two or more computing devices connected via some communications medium with the sole purpose of sharing information and resources. 

Computing Devices 

• Smartphone  

• Tablet  

• Laptop 

• Desktop 

• Server 

• Gaming consoles 

Communications medium 

• Wired medium 

  • Cables  

    • UTP Cable 

      • Unshielded  twisted pair 

    • Coaxial 

    • Fibre optic  

  • The Copper cables can travel 100m before the line starts becoming bad 

  • Fibre optic is 700m to 1km 

• Wireless medium 

  • Radio signals  

    • Wifi 

    • Bluetooth  

    • Infrared  

    • Microwaves    

Why we use networks 

• Expensive  

  • It is not cost effective for people to multiple devices for multiple people 

  • It is better to share a device 

• To centralize resources  

  • A server serves resources to a network 

    • It does not consume any resources 

Types of networking  

• Peer-to-peer 

  • Just two computers communicating with another 

    • There is no server here 

    • Complete access to everyone's files 

    • Very insecure network 

• Client-server network 

  • This is a network where all devices are connected to a server 

    • All of the data is stored on a server 

    • Not everyone is an administrator on a server 

      • There is only one or two administrators 

    • The server has increased security 

      • You only have to worry about one device  

    • The server can also store programs 

      • You can buy many licenses of a program and then virtualize,for example, Microsoft Office to everyone. 

• Cloud based computing 

  • This is where you move all the resources to the internet 

    • Companies (ISPs) offer cloud services 

      • This means that you can create resources on their servers 

Here is a diagram of the different networks and how they communicate to the internet and each other.

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