There are about eight types of network which are used world wide these days, both in houses

and commercially. These networks are used on the bases of their scale and scope, historical reasons, preferences for networking industries, and their design and implementation issues. LAN and WAN are mostly known and used widely. LAN, local area network was first invented for communication between two coLAN operates through cables and network cards. Later WLAN, Wireless

local area network was formed through LAN concept, there are no wires involved in communication between computers, and Wireless LAN cards are required to connect to wireless network. LAN is the original network out of which other networks are formed according to requirements. They are as follow.

LAN - Local Area Network WLAN - Wireless Local Area Network WAN - Wide Area Network MAN - Metropolitan Area Network SAN - Storage Area Network, It can also refer with names like System Area Network, Server Area Network, or sometimes Small Area Network CAN - Campus Area Network, Controller Area Network, and often Cluster Area Network PAN - Personal Area Network DAN - Desk Area Network

LAN - Local Area Network LAN connects networking devices with in short spam of area, i.e. small offices, home, internet cafes etc. LAN uses TCP/IP network protocol for communication between computers. It is often but not always implemented as a single IP subnet. Since LAN is operated in short area so It can be control and administrate by single person or organization.

WAN - Wide Area Network

As word Wide implies, WAN, wide area network cover large distance for communication between computers. The Internet it self is the biggest example of Wide area network, WAN, which is covering the entire earth. WAN is distributed collection of geographically LANs. A network connecting device router connects LANs to WANs. WAN used network protocols like ATM, X.25, and Frame Relay for long distance connectivity. Wireless - Local Area Network A LAN, local area network based on wireless network technology mostly referred as Wi-Fi. Unlike LAN, in WLAN no wires are used, but radio signals are the medium for communication. Wireless network cards are required to be installed in the systems for accessing any wireless network around. Mostly wireless cards connect to wireless routers for communication among computers or accessing WAN, internet. MAN - Metropolitan Area Network This kind of network is not mostly used but it has its own importance for some government bodies and organizations on larger scale. MAN, metropolitan area network falls in middle of LAN and WAN, It covers large span of physical area than LAN but smaller than WAN, such as a city. CAN - Campus Area Network Networking spanning with multiple LANs but smaller than a Metropolitan area network, MAN. This kind of network mostly used in relatively large universities or local business offices and buildings. SAN - Storage Area Network SAM technology is used for data storage and it has no use for most of the organization but data oriented organizations. Storage area network connects servers to data storage devices by using Fiber channel technology.

SAN - System Area Network

SAN, system area networks are also known as cluster area network and it connects high performance computers with high speed connections in cluster configuration.

Topology refers to the way in which the network of computers is connected. Each topology is suited to specific tasks and has its own advantages and disadvantages. The choice of topology is dependent upon

type and number of equipment being used planned applications and rate of data transfers required response times cost

There are FOUR major competing topologies

Bus Ring Star FDDI

Most networking software support all topologies.

Bus Topology

all workstations connect to the same cable segment commonly used for implementing Ethernet at 10mbps the cable is terminated at each end wiring is normally done point to point a faulty cable or workstation will take the entire LAN down two wire, generally implemented using coaxial cable during the 1980's

The bus cable carries the transmitted message along the cable. As the message arrives at each workstation, the workstation computer checks the destination address contained in the message to see if it matches it's own. If the address does not match, the workstation does nothing more.

If the workstation address matches that contained in the message, the workstation processes the message. The message is transmitted along the cable and is visible to all computers connected to that cable. There are THREE common wiring implementations for bus networks

10Base2 (thin-net, CheaperNet) 50-ohm cable using BNC T connectors, cards provide transceiver 10Base5 (ThickNet) 50-ohm cable using 15-pin AUI D-type connectors and external transceivers 10BaseT (UTP) UTP cable using RJ45 connectors and a wiring centre

Ring Topology

workstations connect to the ring faulty workstations can be bypassed more cabling required than bus the connectors used tend to cause a lot of problems commonly used to implement token ring at 4 and 16mbps four wire, generally STP or UTP Physical Implementation Of A Ring Network Each workstation is connected back to a Multiple Access Unit (MAU), which supports up to eight workstations. Additional MAU are cascaded to provide greater workstation numbers.

http://physinfo.ulb.ac.be/cit_courseware/networks/images/pt2_3.gif

FDDI Topology

100mbps normally implemented over fiber optic (fast-Ethernet, UTP) dual redundancy built in by use of primary and secondary ring automatic bypassing and isolation of faulty nodes

Star Topology

all wiring is done from a central point (the server or hub) has the greatest cable lengths of any topology (and thus uses the most amount of cable) generally STP or UTP, four wire

bus

Star

What is a Network Protocol

A protocol is a set of rules that governs the communications between computers on a network. These rules include guidelines that regulate the following characteristics of a network: access method, allowed physical topologies, types of cabling, and speed of data transfer.

Types of Network Protocols

The most common network protocols are: Ethernet Local Talk Token Ring FDDI ATM

The follow is some common-used network symbols to draw different kinds of network protocols.

Ethernet The Ethernet protocol is by far the most widely used. Ethernet uses an access method called CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection). This is a system where each computer listens to the cable before sending anything through the network. If the network is clear, the computer will transmit. If some other node is already transmitting on the cable, the computer will wait and try again when the line is clear. Sometimes, two computers attempt to transmit at the same instant. When this happens a collision occurs. Each computer then backs off and waits a random amount of time before attempting to retransmit. With this access method, it is normal to have collisions. However, the delay caused by collisions and retransmitting is very small and does not normally effect the speed of transmission on the network. The Ethernet protocol allows for linear bus, star, or tree topologies. Data can be transmitted over wireless access points, twisted pair, coaxial, or fiber optic cable at a speed of 10 Mbps up to 1000 Mbps. Fast Ethernet To allow for an increased speed of transmission, the Ethernet protocol has developed a new standard that supports 100 Mbps. This is commonly called Fast Ethernet. Fast Ethernet requires the use of different, more expensive network concentrators/hubs and network interface cards. In addition, category 5 twisted pair or fiber optic cable is necessary. Fast Ethernet is becoming common in schools that have been recently wired. Local Talk Local Talk is a network protocol that was developed by Apple Computer, Inc. for Macintosh computers. The method used by Local Talk is called CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance). It is similar to CSMA/CD except that a computer signals its intent to transmit before it actually does so. Local Talk adapters and special twisted pair cable can be used to connect a series of computers through the serial port. The Macintosh operating system allows the establishment of a peer-to-peer network without the need for additional software. With the addition of the server version of AppleShare software, a client/server network can be established.

The Local Talk protocol allows for linear bus, star, or tree topologies using twisted pair cable. A primary disadvantage of Local Talk is speed. Its speed of transmission is only 230 Kbps. Token Ring The Token Ring protocol was developed by IBM in the mid-1980s. The access method used involves token-passing. In Token Ring, the computers are connected so that the signal travels around the network from one computer to another in a logical ring. A single electronic token moves around the ring from one computer to the next. If a computer does not have information to transmit, it simply passes the token on to the next workstation. If a computer wishes to transmit and receives an empty token, it attaches data to the token. The token then proceeds around the ring until it comes to the computer for which the data is meant. At this point, the data is captured by the receiving computer. The Token Ring protocol requires a star-wired ring using twisted pair or fiber optic cable. It can operate at transmission speeds of 4 Mbps or 16 Mbps. Due to the increasing popularity of Ethernet, the use of Token Ring in school environments has decreased. FDDI Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) is a network protocol that is used primarily to interconnect two or more local area networks, often over large distances. The access method used by FDDI involves token-passing. FDDI uses a dual ring physical topology. Transmission normally occurs on one of the rings; however, if a break occurs, the system keeps information moving by automatically using portions of the second ring to create a new complete ring. A major advantage of FDDI is speed. It operates over fiber optic cable at 100 Mbps. ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a network protocol that transmits data at a speed of 155 Mbps and higher. ATM works by transmitting all data in small packets of a fixed size; whereas, other protocols transfer variable length packets. ATM supports a variety of media such as video, CD-quality audio, and imaging. ATM employs a star topology, which can work with fiber optic as well as twisted pair cable. ATM is most often used to interconnect two or more local area networks. It is also frequently used by Internet Service Providers to utilize high-speed access to the Internet for their clients. As ATM technology becomes more cost-effective, it will provide another solution for constructing faster local area networks. Gigabit Ethernet The most recent development in the Ethernet standard is a protocol that has a transmission speed of 1 Gbps. Gigabit Ethernet is primarily used for backbones on a network at this time. In the future, it will probably be used for workstation and server connections also. It can be used with both fiber optic cabling and copper. The 1000BaseTX, the copper cable used for Gigabit Ethernet, is expected to become the formal standard in 1999.