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A computer network is a telecommunications network that connects a collection of computers to allow communication and data exchange between systems, software applications, and users. The computers that are involved in the network that originate, route and terminate the data are called nodes.[1] The interconnection of computers is accomplished with a combination of cable or wireless media and networking hardware.

Two devices are said to be networked when a process in one device is able to exchange information with a process in another device. Networks may be classified by various characteristics, such as the media used to transmit signals, the communications protocols used to organize network traffic, network scale, network topology and organizational scope. The best-known computer network is the Internet.

Communication protocols define the rules and data formats for exchanging information in a computer network. Well-known communications protocols include Ethernet, a hardware and link layer standard that is widely used for local area networks, and the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP), which defines a set of protocols for communication between multiple networks, for host-to-host data transfer, and for application-specific data transmission formats. Protocols provide the basis for network programming.

Computer networks are created to support many different sorts of services such as World Wide Web, file servers, email, instant messaging and printing.

Contents

History [edit]

Distributed processing
[icon] This section requires expansion. (December 2010)

Before the advent of computer networks based on telecommunications systems, communication between calculation machines and early computers was performed by human users by carrying instructions between them. The overwhelming method for transferring information between computers today is via computer networks. However, using a method jokingly known as "sneakernet," people do continue to transfer information to another person's computer by hand-carrying removable storage media (such as flash drives).

Today, computer networks are the core of modern communication. All modern aspects of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) are computer-controlled. Telephony increasingly runs over the Internet Protocol, although not necessarily the public Internet. The scope of communication has increased significantly in the past decade. This boom in communications would not have been possible without the progressively advancing computer network. Computer networks, and the technologies that make communication between networked computers possible, continue to drive computer hardware, software, and peripherals industries. The expansion of related industries is mirrored by growth in the numbers and types of people using networks, from the researcher to the home user.

Properties [edit]

Computer networking may be considered a branch of electrical engineering, telecommunications, computer science, information technology or computer engineering, since it relies upon the theoretical and practical application of the related disciplines.

A computer network has the following properties:

Facilitates interpersonal communications
People can communicate efficiently and easily via email, instant messaging, chat rooms, telephone, video telephone calls, and video conferencing.
Allows sharing of files, data, and other types of information
Authorized users may access information stored on other computers on the network. Providing access to information on shared storage devices is an important feature of many networks.
Allows sharing of network and computing resources
Users may access and use resources provided by devices on the network, such as printing a document on a shared network printer. Distributed computing uses computing resources across a network to accomplish tasks.
May be insecure
A computer network may be used by computer Hackers to deploy computer viruses or computer worms on devices connected to the network, or to prevent these devices from accessing the network (denial of service).
May interfere with other technologies
Power line communication strongly disturbs certain[5] forms of radio communication, e.g., amateur radio. It may also interfere with last mile access technologies such as ADSL and VDSL.
May be difficult to set up
A complex computer network may be difficult to set up. It may be costly to set up an effective computer network in a large organization.

Communication media [edit]

The communication media used to connect devices to form a computer network include electrical cable (HomePNA, power line communication, G.hn), optical fiber (fiber-optic communication), and radio waves (wireless networking). In the OSI model, these are defined at layers 1 and 2 — the physical layer and the data link layer.

A widely-adopted family of communication media used in local area network (LAN) technology is collectively known as Ethernet. The media and protocol standards that enable communication between networked devices over Ethernet is defined by IEEE 802. Ethernet encompasses both wired and wireless LAN technologies. Wired LAN devices transmit signals over cable media. Wireless LAN devices use radio waves or infrared signals as a transmission medium.

Wired technologies [edit]

The order of the following wired technologies are, roughly, from slowest to fastest transmission speed.

  • Twisted pair wire is the most widely used medium for all telecommunication. Twisted-pair cabling consist of copper wires that are twisted into pairs. Ordinary telephone wires consist of two insulated copper wires twisted into pairs. Computer network cabling (wired Ethernet as defined by IEEE 802.3) consists of 4 pairs of copper cabling that can be utilized for both voice and data transmission. The use of two wires twisted together helps to reduce crosstalk and electromagnetic induction. The transmission speed ranges from 2 million bits per second to 10 billion bits per second. Twisted pair cabling comes in two forms: unshielded twisted pair (UTP) and shielded twisted-pair (STP). Each form comes in several category ratings, designed for use in various scenarios.
  • Coaxial cable is widely used for cable television systems, office buildings, and other work-sites for local area networks. The cables consist of copper or aluminum wire surrounded by an insulating layer (typically a flexible material with a high dielectric constant), which itself is surrounded by a conductive layer. The insulation helps minimize interference and distortion. Transmission speed ranges from 200 million bits per second to more than 500 million bits per second.
  • An optical fiber is a glass fiber. It uses pulses of light to transmit data. Some advantages of optical fibers over metal wires are less transmission loss, immunity from electromagnetic radiation, and very fast transmission speeds of up to trillions of bits per second. One can use different colors of lights to increase the number of messages being sent over a fiber optic cable.

Wireless technologies [edit]

Main article: Wireless network
  • Terrestrial microwave – Terrestrial microwave communication uses Earth-based transmitters and receivers resembling satellite dishes. Terrestrial microwaves are in the low-gigahertz range, which limits all communications to line-of-sight. Relay stations are spaced approximately 48 km (30 mi) apart.
  • Communications satellites – Satellites communicate via microwave radio waves, which are not deflected by the Earth's atmosphere. The satellites are stationed in space, typically in geosynchronous orbit 35,400 km (22,000 mi) above the equator. These Earth-orbiting systems are capable of receiving and relaying voice, data, and TV signals.
  • Cellular and PCS systems use several radio communications technologies. The systems divide the region covered into multiple geographic areas. Each area has a low-power transmitter or radio relay antenna device to relay calls from one area to the next area.
  • Radio and spread spectrum technologies – Wireless local area networks use a high-frequency radio technology similar to digital cellular and a low-frequency radio technology. Wireless LANs use spread spectrum technology to enable communication between multiple devices in a limited area. IEEE 802.11 defines a common flavor of open-standards wireless radio-wave technology.
  • A global area network (GAN) is a network used for supporting mobile across an arbitrary number of wireless LANs, satellite coverage areas, etc. The key challenge in mobile communications is handing off user communications from one local coverage area to the next. In IEEE Project 802, this involves a succession of terrestrial wireless LANs.[6]

Exotic technologies [edit]

There have been various attempts at transporting data over exotic media:

  • Extending the Internet to interplanetary dimensions via radio waves.[8]

Both cases have a large round-trip delay time, which gives slow two-way communication, but doesn't prevent sending large amounts of information.

Communications protocols [edit]

Internet map. The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide.

A communications protocol is a set of rules for exchanging information over a network. In a protocol stack (also see the OSI model), each protocol leverages the services of the protocol below it. An important example of a protocol stack is HTTP running over TCP over IP over IEEE 802.11. (TCP and IP are members of the Internet Protocol Suite. IEEE 802.11 is a member of the Ethernet protocol suite.) This stack is used between the wireless router and the home user's personal computer when the user is surfing the web.

Communication protocols have various characteristics. They may be connection-oriented or connectionless, they may use circuit mode or packet switching, and they may use hierarchical addressing or flat addressing.

There are many communication protocols, a few of which are described below.

Ethernet [edit]

Ethernet is a family of protocols used in LANs, described by a set of standards together called IEEE 802 published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. It has a flat addressing scheme. It operates mostly at levels 1 and 2 of the OSI model. For home users today, the most well-known member of this protocol family is IEEE 802.11, otherwise known as Wireless LAN (WLAN). The complete IEEE 802 protocol suite provides a diverse set of networking capabilities. For example, MAC bridging (IEEE 802.1D) deals with the routing of Ethernet packets using a Spanning Tree Protocol, IEEE 802.1Q describes VLANs, and IEEE 802.1X defines a port-based Network Access Control protocol, which forms the basis for the authentication mechanisms used in VLANs (but it is also found in WLANs) – it is what the home user sees when the user has to enter a "wireless access key".

Internet Protocol Suite [edit]

The Internet Protocol Suite, also called TCP/IP, is the foundation of all modern internetworking. It offers connection-less as well as connection-oriented services over an inherently unreliable network traversed by datagram transmission at the Internet protocol (IP) level. At its core, the protocol suite defines the addressing, identification, and routing specifications for Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) and for IPv6, the next generation of the protocol with a much enlarged addressing capability.

SONET/SDH [edit]

Synchronous optical networking (SONET) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) are standardized multiplexing protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams over optical fiber using lasers. They were originally designed to transport circuit mode communications from a variety of different sources, primarily to support real-time, uncompressed, circuit-switched voice encoded in PCM(Pulse-Code Modulation) format. However, due to its protocol neutrality and transport-oriented features, SONET/SDH also was the obvious choice for transporting Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) frames.

Asynchronous Transfer Mode [edit]

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a switching technique for telecommunication networks. It uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing and encodes data into small, fixed-sized cells. This differs from other protocols such as the Internet Protocol Suite or Ethernet that use variable sized packets or frames. ATM has similarity with both circuit and packet switched networking. This makes it a good choice for a network that must handle both traditional high-throughput data traffic, and real-time, low-latency content such as voice and video. ATM uses a connection-oriented model in which a virtual circuit must be established between two endpoints before the actual data exchange begins.

While the role of ATM is diminishing in favor of next-generation networks, it still plays a role in the last mile, which is the connection between an Internet service provider and the home user. For an interesting write-up of the technologies involved, including the deep stacking of communications protocols used, see.[9]

Scale [edit]

Computer network types by spatial scope

A network can be characterized by its physical capacity or its organizational purpose. Use of the network, including user authorization and access rights, differ accordingly.

Personal area network [edit]

A personal area network (PAN) is a computer network used for communication among computer and different information technological devices close to one person. Some examples of devices that are used in a PAN are personal computers, printers, fax machines, telephones, PDAs, scanners, and even video game consoles. A PAN may include wired and wireless devices. The reach of a PAN typically extends to 10 meters.[10] A wired PAN is usually constructed with USB and Firewire connections while technologies such as Bluetooth and infrared communication typically form a wireless PAN.

Local area network [edit]

A local area network (LAN) is a network that connects computers and devices in a limited geographical area such as a home, school, office building, or closely positioned group of buildings. Each computer or device on the network is a node. Wired LANs are most likely based on Ethernet technology. Newer standards such as ITU-T G.hn also provide a way to create a wired LAN using existing wiring, such as coaxial cables, telephone lines, and power lines.[11]

Typical library network, in a branching tree topology with controlled access to resources

A LAN is depicted in the accompanying diagram. All interconnected devices use the network layer (layer 3) to handle multiple subnets (represented by different colors). Those inside the library have 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet connections to the user device and a Gigabit Ethernet connection to the central router. They could be called Layer 3 switches, because they only have Ethernet interfaces and support the Internet Protocol. It might be more correct to call them access routers, where the router at the top is a distribution router that connects to the Internet and to the academic networks' customer access routers.

The defining characteristics of a LAN, in contrast to a wide area network (WAN), include higher data transfer rates, limited geographic range, and lack of reliance on leased lines to provide connectivity. Current Ethernet or other IEEE 802.3 LAN technologies operate at data transfer rates up to 10 Gbit/s. The IEEE investigates the standardization of 40 and 100 Gbit/s rates.[12] A LAN can be connected to a WAN using a router.

Home area network [edit]

A home area network (HAN) is a residential LAN which is used for communication between digital devices typically deployed in the home, usually a small number of personal computers and accessories, such as printers and mobile computing devices. An important function is the sharing of Internet access, often a broadband service through a cable TV or digital subscriber line (DSL) provider.

Storage area network [edit]

A storage area network (SAN) is a dedicated network that provides access to consolidated, block level data storage. SANs are primarily used to make storage devices, such as disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes, accessible to servers so that the devices appear like locally attached devices to the operating system. A SAN typically has its own network of storage devices that are generally not accessible through the local area network by other devices. The cost and complexity of SANs dropped in the early 2000s to levels allowing wider adoption across both enterprise and small to medium sized business environments.

Campus area network [edit]

A campus area network (CAN) is made up of an interconnection of LANs within a limited geographical area. The networking equipment (switches, routers) and transmission media (optical fiber, copper plant, Cat5 cabling, etc.) are almost entirely owned by the campus tenant / owner (an enterprise, university, government, etc.).

For example, a university campus network is likely to link a variety of campus buildings to connect academic colleges or departments, the library, and student residence halls.

Backbone network [edit]

A backbone network is part of a computer network infrastructure that provides a path for the exchange of information between different LANs or subnetworks. A backbone can tie together diverse networks within the same building, across different buildings, or over a wide area.

For example, a large company might implement a backbone network to connect departments that are located around the world. The equipment that ties together the departmental networks constitutes the network backbone. When designing a network backbone, network performance and network congestion are critical factors to take into account. Normally, the backbone network's capacity is greater than that of the individual networks connected to it.

Another example of a backbone network is the Internet backbone, which is the set of wide area networks (WANs) and core routers that tie together all networks connected to the Internet.

Metropolitan area network [edit]

A Metropolitan area network (MAN) is a large computer network that usually spans a city or a large campus.

Sample EPN made of Frame relay WAN connections and dialup remote access.
Sample VPN used to interconnect 3 offices and remote users

Wide area network [edit]

A wide area network (WAN) is a computer network that covers a large geographic area such as a city, country, or spans even intercontinental distances. A WAN uses a communications channel that combines many types of media such as telephone lines, cables, and air waves. A WAN often makes use of transmission facilities provided by common carriers, such as telephone companies. WAN technologies generally function at the lower three layers of the OSI reference model: the physical layer, the data link layer, and the network layer.

Enterprise private network [edit]

An enterprise private network is a network built by a single organization to interconnect its office locations (e.g., production sites, head offices, remote offices, shops) in order to share computer resources.

Virtual private network [edit]

A virtual private network (VPN) is a computer network in which some of the links between nodes are carried by open connections or virtual circuits in some larger network (e.g., the Internet) instead of by physical wires. The data link layer protocols of the virtual network are said to be tunneled through the larger network when this is the case. One common application is secure communications through the public Internet, but a VPN need not have explicit security features, such as authentication or content encryption. VPNs, for example, can be used to separate the traffic of different user communities over an underlying network with strong security features.

VPN may have best-effort performance, or may have a defined service level agreement (SLA) between the VPN customer and the VPN service provider. Generally, a VPN has a topology more complex than point-to-point.

Organizational scope [edit]

Networks are typically managed by the organizations that own them. Private enterprise networks may use a combination of intranets and extranets. They may also provide network access to the Internet, which has no single owner and permits virtually unlimited global connectivity.

Intranets and extranets [edit]

Intranets and extranets are parts or extensions of a computer network, usually a LAN.

An intranet is a set of networks that are under the control of a single administrative entity. The intranet uses the IP protocol and IP-based tools such as web browsers and file transfer applications. The administrative entity limits use of the intranet to its authorized users. Most commonly, an intranet is the internal network of an organization. A large intranet will typically have at least one web server to provide users with organizational information.

An extranet is a network that is also under the administrative control of a single organization, but supports a limited connection to a specific external network. For example, an organization may provide access to some aspects of its intranet to share data with its business partners or customers. These other entities are not necessarily trusted from a security standpoint. Network connection to an extranet is often, but not always, implemented via WAN technology.

Internetwork [edit]

An internetwork is the connection of multiple computer networks via a common routing technology using routers.

Internet [edit]

The Internet is the largest example of an internetwork. It is a global system of interconnected governmental, academic, corporate, public, and private computer networks. It is based on the networking technologies of the Internet Protocol Suite. It is the successor of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) developed by DARPA of the United States Department of Defense. The Internet is also the communications backbone underlying the World Wide Web (WWW).

Participants in the Internet use a diverse array of methods of several hundred documented, and often standardized, protocols compatible with the Internet Protocol Suite and an addressing system (IP addresses) administered by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and address registries. Service providers and large enterprises exchange information about the reachability of their address spaces through the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), forming a redundant worldwide mesh of transmission paths.

Network topology [edit]

Network Topologies examples

Network topology is the layout or organizational hierarchy of interconnected nodes of a computer network.

Common layouts [edit]

Common layouts are:

  • A bus network: all nodes are connected to a common medium along this medium. This was the layout used in the original Ethernet, called 10BASE5 and 10BASE2.
  • A star network: all nodes are connected to a special central node. This is the typical layout found in a Wireless LAN, where each wireless client connects to the central Wireless access point.
  • A ring network: each node is connected to its left and right neighbour node, such that all nodes are connected and that each node can reach each other node by traversing nodes left- or rightwards. The Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) made use of such a topology.
  • A mesh network: each node is connected to an arbitrary number of neighbours in such a way that there is at least one traversal from any node to any other.
  • A fully connected network: each node is connected to every other node in the network.

Note that the physical layout of the nodes in a network may not necessarily reflect the network topology. As an example, with FDDI, the network topology is a ring (actually two counter-rotating rings), but the physical topology is a star, because all neighboring connections are routed via a central physical location.

Overlay network [edit]

An overlay network is a virtual computer network that is built on top of another network. Nodes in the overlay network are connected by virtual or logical links. Each link corresponds to a path, perhaps through many physical links, in the underlying network. The topology of the overlay network may (and often does) differ from that of the underlying one.

A sample overlay network: IP over SONET over Optical

For example, many peer-to-peer networks are overlay networks. They are organized as nodes of a virtual system of links that run on top of the Internet. The Internet was initially built as an overlay on the telephone network.[13]

The most striking example of an overlay network is the Internet itself. At the network layer, each node can reach any other by a direct connection to the desired IP address, thereby creating a fully connected network. The underlying network, however, is composed of a mesh-like interconnect of subnetworks of varying topologies (and technologies). Address resolution and routing are the means that allow mapping of a fully connected IP overlay network to its underlying network.

Overlay networks have been around since the invention of networking when computer systems were connected over telephone lines using modems, before any data network existed.

Another example of an overlay network is a distributed hash table, which maps keys to nodes in the network. In this case, the underlying network is an IP network, and the overlay network is a table (actually a map) indexed by keys.

Overlay networks have also been proposed as a way to improve Internet routing, such as through quality of service guarantees to achieve higher-quality streaming media. Previous proposals such as IntServ, DiffServ, and IP Multicast have not seen wide acceptance largely because they require modification of all routers in the network.[citation needed] On the other hand, an overlay network can be incrementally deployed on end-hosts running the overlay protocol software, without cooperation from Internet service providers. The overlay network has no control over how packets are routed in the underlying network between two overlay nodes, but it can control, for example, the sequence of overlay nodes that a message traverses before it reaches its destination.

For example, Akamai Technologies manages an overlay network that provides reliable, efficient content delivery (a kind of multicast). Academic research includes end system multicast and overcast for multicast; RON (resilient overlay network) for resilient routing; and OverQoS for quality of service guarantees, among others.

Basic hardware components [edit]

Main article: Networking hardware

Apart from the physical communications media described above, networks comprise additional basic hardware building blocks, such as network interface controller cards (NICs), repeaters, hubs, bridges, switches, routers, and firewalls.

Network interface cards [edit]

A network card, network adapter, or network interface card (NIC) is a computer hardware accessory that provides a computers the physical interface to a networking medium, such as Ethernet. It provides low-level addressing through the assignment of a MAC address.

Each Ethernet network interface has a unique MAC address which is usually stored permanently in a small memory device on the card, thus avoiding an address conflicts on the network. The size of an Ethernet MAC address is six octets. Uniqueness is maintained by a system of address space delegation administered by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). For this purpose the 3 most significant octets are reserved for encoding of the equipment manufacturers. The equipment manufacturers are obliged to use only their assigned prefixes and to uniquely set the 3-octet least-significant part of every Ethernet interface they produce.

Repeaters and hubs [edit]

A repeater is an electronic device that receives a network signal, cleans it of unnecessary noise, and regenerates it. The signal is retransmitted at a higher power level, or to the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances without degradation. In most twisted pair Ethernet configurations, repeaters are required for cable that runs longer than 100 meters. A repeater with multiple ports is known as a hub. Repeaters work on the physical layer of the OSI model. Repeaters require a small amount of time to regenerate the signal. This can cause a propagation delay which can affect network performance. As a result, many network architectures limit the number of repeaters that can be used in a row, e.g., the Ethernet 5-4-3 rule.

Repeaters and hubs have been mostly obsoleted by modern switches.

Bridges [edit]

A network bridge connects multiple network segments at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model to form a single network. Bridges broadcast to all ports except the port on which the broadcast was received. However, bridges do not promiscuously copy traffic to all ports, as hubs do. Instead, bridges learn which MAC addresses are reachable through specific ports. Once the bridge associates a port with an address, it will send traffic for that address to that port only.

Bridges learn the association of ports and addresses by examining the source address of frames that it sees on various ports. Once a frame arrives through a port, the bridge assumes that the MAC address is associated with that port and stores its source address. The first time a bridge sees a previously unknown destination address, the bridge will forward the frame to all ports other than the one on which the frame arrived.

Bridges come in three basic types:

  • Local bridges: Directly connect LANs
  • Remote bridges: Can be used to create a wide area network (WAN) link between LANs. Remote bridges, where the connecting link is slower than the end networks, largely have been replaced with routers.
  • Wireless bridges: Can be used to join LANs or connect remote devices to LANs.

Switches [edit]

A network switch is a device that forwards and filters OSI layer 2 datagrams between ports based on the MAC addresses in the packets.[14] A switch is distinct from a hub in that it only forwards the frames to the ports involved in the communication rather than all ports connected. A switch breaks the collision domain but represents itself as a broadcast domain. Switches make decisions about where to forward frames based on MAC addresses. A switch normally has numerous ports, facilitating a star topology for devices, and cascading additional switches. Multi-layer switches are capable of routing based on layer 3 addressing or additional logical levels. The term switch is often used loosely to include devices such as routers and bridges, as well as devices that may distribute traffic based on load or based on application content (e.g., a Web URL identifier).

Routers [edit]

A router is an internetworking device that forwards packets between networks by processing the routing information included in the packet or datagram (Internet protocol information from layer 3). The routing information is often processed in conjunction with the routing table (or forwarding table). A router uses its routing table to determine where to forward packets. (A destination in a routing table can include a "null" interface, also known as the "black hole" interface because data can go into it, however, no further processing is done for said data.)

Firewalls [edit]

A firewall is a network device for controlling network security and access rules. Firewalls are typically configured to reject access requests from unrecognized sources while allowing actions from recognized ones. The vital role firewalls play in network security grows in parallel with the constant increase in cyber attacks.

Network service [edit]

Network services are hosted by servers on a computer network, to provide some functionality for members or users of the network, or to help the network itself to operate. Services are usually based on a service protocol which defines the format and sequencing of messages between clients and servers of that network service.

Network services such as DNS (Domain Name System) give names for IP and MAC addresses (people remember names like “nm.lan” better than numbers like “210.121.67.18”),[15] and DHCP to ensure that the equipment on the network has a valid IP address.[16]

E-mail,[17] printing and network file sharing services are also very common network services.

Network congestion [edit]

Network congestion occurs when a link or node is carrying so much data that its quality of service deteriorates. Typical effects include queueing delay, packet loss or the blocking of new connections. A consequence of these latter two is that incremental increases in offered load lead either only to small increases in network throughput, or to an actual reduction in network throughput.

Network protocols which use aggressive retransmissions to compensate for packet loss tend to keep systems in a state of network congestion even after the initial load has been reduced to a level which would not normally have induced network congestion. Thus, networks using these protocols can exhibit two stable states under the same level of load. The stable state with low throughput is known as congestive collapse.

Modern networks use congestion control and congestion avoidance techniques to try to avoid congestion collapse. These include: exponential backoff in protocols such as 802.11's CSMA/CA and the original Ethernet, window reduction in TCP, and fair queueing in devices such as routers. Another method to avoid the negative effects of network congestion is implementing priority schemes, so that some packets are transmitted with higher priority than others. Priority schemes do not solve network congestion by themselves, but they help to alleviate the effects of congestion for some services. An example of this is 802.1p. A third method to avoid network congestion is the explicit allocation of network resources to specific flows. One example of this is the use of Contention-Free Transmission Opportunities (CFTXOPs) in the ITU-T G.hn standard, which provides high-speed (up to 1 Gbit/s) Local area networking over existing home wires (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables).

RFC 2914 addresses the subject of congestion control in detail.

Network performance [edit]

Network performance refers to the measures of service quality of a telecommunications product as seen by the customer.

The following list gives examples of network performance measures for a circuit-switched network and one type of packet-switched network, viz. ATM:

  • Circuit-switched networks: In circuit switched networks, network performance is synonymous with the grade of service. The number of rejected calls is a measure of how well the network is performing under heavy traffic loads.[18] Other types of performance measures can include the level of noise and echo.

There are many ways to measure the performance of a network, as each network is different in nature and design. Performance can also be modelled instead of measured. For example, state transition diagrams are often used to model queuing performance in a circuit-switched network. These diagrams allow the network planner to analyze how the network will perform in each state, ensuring that the network will be optimally designed.[20]

Network security [edit]

Network security consists of the provisions and policies adopted by the network administrator to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of the computer network and its network-accessible resources.[21] Network security is the authorization of access to data in a network, which is controlled by the network administrator. Users are assigned an ID and password that allows them access to information and programs within their authority. Network security is used on a variety of computer networks, both public and private, to secure daily transactions and communications among businesses, government agencies and individuals.

Network resilience [edit]

Network resilience is "the ability to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of faults and challenges to normal operation.”[22]

Views of networks [edit]

Users and network administrators typically have different views of their networks. Users can share printers and some servers from a workgroup, which usually means they are in the same geographic location and are on the same LAN, whereas a Network Administrator is responsible to keep that network up and running. A community of interest has less of a connection of being in a local area, and should be thought of as a set of arbitrarily located users who share a set of servers, and possibly also communicate via peer-to-peer technologies.

Network administrators can see networks from both physical and logical perspectives. The physical perspective involves geographic locations, physical cabling, and the network elements (e.g., routers, bridges and application layer gateways) that interconnect the physical media. Logical networks, called, in the TCP/IP architecture, subnets, map onto one or more physical media. For example, a common practice in a campus of buildings is to make a set of LAN cables in each building appear to be a common subnet, using virtual LAN (VLAN) technology.

Both users and administrators will be aware, to varying extents, of the trust and scope characteristics of a network. Again using TCP/IP architectural terminology, an intranet is a community of interest under private administration usually by an enterprise, and is only accessible by authorized users (e.g. employees).[23] Intranets do not have to be connected to the Internet, but generally have a limited connection. An extranet is an extension of an intranet that allows secure communications to users outside of the intranet (e.g. business partners, customers).[23]

Unofficially, the Internet is the set of users, enterprises, and content providers that are interconnected by Internet Service Providers (ISP). From an engineering viewpoint, the Internet is the set of subnets, and aggregates of subnets, which share the registered IP address space and exchange information about the reachability of those IP addresses using the Border Gateway Protocol. Typically, the human-readable names of servers are translated to IP addresses, transparently to users, via the directory function of the Domain Name System (DNS).

Over the Internet, there can be business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) communications. When money or sensitive information is exchanged, the communications are apt to be protected by some form of communications security mechanism. Intranets and extranets can be securely superimposed onto the Internet, without any access by general Internet users and administrators, using secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology.

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Computer network definition, retrieved 2011-11-12 
  2. ^ Chris Sutton. "Internet Began 35 Years Ago at UCLA with First Message Ever Sent Between Two Computers". UCLA. Archived from the original on March 8, 2008. 
  3. ^ Ethernet: Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer Networks, Robert M. Metcalfe and David R. Boggs, Communications of the ACM (pp 395–404, Vol. 19, No. 5), July 1976.
  4. ^ a b Spurgeon, Charles E. (2000). Ethernet The Definitive Guide. O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN 1-56592-660-9. 
  5. ^ Andrew S Tanenbaum,4th Edition. Pearson Education/PHI.
  6. ^ "Mobile Broadband Wireless connections (MBWA)". Retrieved 2011-11-12. 
  7. ^ Bergen Linux User Group's CPIP Implementation
  8. ^ A. Hooke (September 2000), Interplanetary Internet, Third Annual International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies, retrieved 2011-11-12 
  9. ^ Martin, Thomas. "Design Principles for DSL-Based Access Solutions". Retrieved 18 June 2011. 
  10. ^ "personal area network (PAN)". Retrieved January 29, 2011. 
  11. ^ New global standard for fully networked home, ITU-T, 2008-12-12, retrieved 2011-11-12 
  12. ^ IEEE P802.3ba 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s Ethernet Task Force, retrieved 2011-11-12 
  13. ^ D. Andersen; H. Balakrishnan; M. Kaashoek; R. Morris (10-2001), Resilient Overlay Networks, Association for Computing Machinery, retrieved 2011-11-12 
  14. ^ "Define switch.". WWW.Wikipedia.com. Retrieved April 8, 2008. 
  15. ^ RFC 1035, Domain names - Implementation and Specification, P. Mockapetris (November 1987)
  16. ^ Peterson LL, Davie BS. (2011). Computer Networks: A Systems Approach.
  17. ^ rfc5321
  18. ^ Teletraffic Engineering Handbook, ITU-T Study Group 2, archived from the original on 2007-01-11 
  19. ^ Telecommunications Magazine Online, Americas January 2003, Issue Highlights, Online Exclusive: Broadband Access Maximum Performance, Retrieved on February 13, 2005.
  20. ^ "State Transition Diagrams". Retrieved July 13, 2003. 
  21. ^ Simmonds, A; Sandilands, P; van Ekert, L (2004). "An Ontology for Network Security Attacks". Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3285: 317–323. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-30176-9_41. ISBN 978-3-540-23659-7. 
  22. ^ "Definitions: Resilience". ResiliNets Research Initiative. Retrieved 2011-11-12. 
  23. ^ a b RFC 2547

 This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration document "Federal Standard 1037C".

Further reading [edit]

External links [edit]
History
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Pioneers
Network topology
Transmission media
Switching
Multiplexing
Networks
Geographic
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