Networking
What is a Network? So maybe you already know what a Network is. Maybe you've built your own network at home or help someone to run the network at school or at your job. That's okay I don't want to bore you so if this applies to you I would like to give you this challenge to think of a good description of what a network is if you've come up with somethingyou're happy with well done feel free.
Computers printers TVs and so on you connect these by means of a network when the devices are connected they're able to share data this could be sending a print job to a printer sending an email or streaming video this can also be used for sharing an internet connection mostly network users are unaware of the network they're using as long as they can browse the Internet do their job browse YouTube they're usually fine for all of these devices to communicate they need to be connected together somehow one way sir plug cables into the devices and connect them to another device called a switch.
An example is in a school's computer lab in this case acomputer in the lab connects to a wall socket with a cable another cable runs through the wall which comes out at a patch panel this may be in a cabinet on the wall somewhere in the room or in another room entirely the port on the patch panel then connects to the switch you might have a switch at home too most homes don't have wall sockets so devices are connected directly to the switch we'll talk more about how switches work later we can also connect devices wire lessly a common way to do this is to use a wireless access point a wireless network like this is also called Wi-Fi.
An example of this is if you have a tablet it is in practical to cable it in so Wireless is a good option the accesspoint is like a switch without cables more than one device can connect to the access point over time but without the messy cabling the access point can alsobe connected to the switch with a cable this way wired and wireless devices can all be part of the same network having both wired switches and wires access points gives you more connection options imagine you have a laptop in an office you may connect it to the network with a cable when you're at your desk when you have a meeting in the conference room you remove the cable and connect toWi-Fi where the wired or wireless the goal of the network.
Is to moveinformation from one device to another for this to work the sender and the receiver must understand each other they need to speak the same language in the network speaking the same language means that devices agree on how data is sentreceived organized and handled basically they agree on a process that they all follow it's a bit like filling out pape rwork this is called a protocol.
A lot of different protocols are used depending on what's needed at the time network software and hardware are designed with these protocols in mindyou will hear of protocols like Ethernet and TCP which are used for sending andreceiving data you may also hear of protocols like HTTP which is used for accessing the web and SMTP which is used for email usually several protocols are used together to achieve a task we look at protocols further in future videos in summary networks are used to connect devices together.
Devices use the network to communicate and to share information to share information devices need to speak the same language this language is called a protocol which is a set of instructions of how to handle the information we're going to start with some simple questions to get the brain working firstly what are the two ways computer scan connect to the network to follow on from that what devices do they usually connect to and finally how many protocols are used when one computer accesses another computer when you're ready to see the answers follow the link at the bottom of the screen that works connect devices you could call devices.
On the network nodes nodes may include devices that help control the traffic flowing through a network like switches and routers nodes also include end points or hosts these are devices that send and receive the bulk of the trafficthis includes workstations servers printers and so on now works come in different sizes a network at home is an example of a small network these network usually only have a few nodes this is called a Soho network Soho meanssmall office home office these network typically have a couple of computers aprinter a few phones and tablets some devices will be wireless and some areconnected to a switch this might be a good time to mention that people oftensay hub when they mean switch you can see why of course as the switch lookslike a central hub in a Soho network but please keep in mind that switches and hubs are very different things hubs are really old technology that you generally don't see anymore outside of a museum while switches are modern andcommonly used they look very similar so it's easy to mix them up have a look atthe model number to see if it gives you any clues about what the device reallyis in a Soho.
network a router is used to connect to the internet you might find that the router switch access point are all integrated into one device also her network will only have a few devices a corporation for example the bank will have many devices this is called an enterprise network the enterprise network may cover several floors in a building there may also have several office buildings in different cities or even across different countries an internet provider has avery large network this is called a service provider network not only do they provide Internet access they also offer services to connect their customers together.
Consider the bank with offices all around the countrythe service provider uses part of their network to join these officers together when devices are collected into a local area we call this a local area network or LAN the land may be a small network in a Soho network the LAN is the switch with the handful of devices connected or the land may be part of a bigger network like an enterprise network this network may have many switches routers and access points depending on their needs think of the bank from before they havean office with several floors you could consider the whole building as a LAN or more likely the network is broken up into smaller parts perhaps there is aseparate network on each floor each of these could also be called the LAN.
These separate LANs may be connected together but we'll talk more about that later but a banks network is going to be larger than just one building banks have offices all over the country and all over the world even though they are far apart these networks can be joined together this is called a win or widearea network imagine for a moment that you work for a company with an office in Sydney and an office in Melbourne you could contact a service provider and they can connect these officers for you where's there a topic all of their own so we'll cover them in detail in a later video let's take a moment for a quick summary all networks are different and this includes their size a Soho network is very small while an enterprise network may be very large of course your network could fit in anywhere in between a LAN or local area network is a collection of network devices in a local area like a singlebuilding a when or wide area network connects networks that are far apart and once again it's time to get the brain working here's something to think about you work for a company that has a finance division an engineering division and an admin division each group have their own network and the networks are joined together is this network still a LAN or is it something else entirely the company grows and adds a retail division in addition to the head office there isnow six branch offices what type of network .
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