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Saturday 17 August 2013

MS 07 IGNOU MBA Solved Assignment Describe the main components of a network including hardware & software

MS 07 IGNOU MBA Solved Assignment 


Describe the main components of a network including hardware & software and various types of networks. Distinguish between LAN & WAN and distinguish between Internet and Intranet.



Ans :


Different types of physical components are involved that builds a LAN/WANcomputer network. The major components are hubs, NIC adapters, network cables,routers, switches, modems and gateway. Following is the basic overview of each of the major component of a computer network.
Servers
Network servers are computers that provide different services to a computer networksuch as logon authentication, internet access, disk space, printing access, CD/DVD-ROM access, database access, antivirus and other software application updationetc. The specialized server operating systems are Windows 2000 Serve, Windows2003 Server, Linux and Sun Solaris. In the Windows 2000/2003 server, activedirectory holds the users and network computer information.
Cabling
There are different types of network cables are involved in a compute network suchas coaxial cable, Ethernet cable UTP/STP and fiber optic cable. The most commonlyused cable in a local area network is UTP/STP (Unshielded twisted pair/shieldedtwisted pair). However fiber optic is currently replacing all the traditional cables andis being widely used in LAN and WAN networks. Data travels at the speed of lightthrough the fiber optic cables thus fiber optic is a fastest data carrier in the computer networks.
LAN cards
LAN cards, NIC or network adapters are the essential physical parts of any computer network. Every computer in a network requires a LAN card to get connected with theother computers in the network. Every LAN card is assigned a unique IP address for computer’s identification on the network. Wireless LAN cards are used in thewireless LAN.
Switch/Hub
Hub or switch is a centralized device and both devices almost play the same functioni.e. every computer in a network (in star and mesh topology) is directly connected
with the hub or switch. The major difference in hub and switch is that when dataarrives at hub it broadcasts it to the every the computer in a network and only thedestined computer accept the data however the in case of switch, data is onlytransferred to the destined computer and not to the all computers. Switch providesmore data transfer speed as compared to the hub. In the advanced switches, aswitching table is maintained, which has the database of IP addresses and MACaddress of every computer.
Router 
The basic function of the router is to route the traffic (data) to its destination basedon the IP address. Router is a most important network communication device in LANand especially in WAN and the whole communication system of the internet is basedon the routers. Router is a key component is WAN. Like in the advance switches,Router maintains the routing table, which contains the IP address of the source anddestination routers. With the help of the routing table, a route finds the best shortestpossible path of the destination. Routing tables are continually updated and thisupdatation is propagated in all the connected routers.
Antenna
Antennas are the part of a wireless computer network for boosting the signals for adapters, access points, and bridge equipments. Antennas also provide the buildingto building wireless connectivity and some of the types of antennas are directionalantenna, video antennas, yagi antennas, wireless communication antennas, omni-directional antennas, and base station antennas.
Modems
Modem is a network device that performs two functions modulation anddemodulation i.e. it converts the digital data into the analog signals and the analogdata into digital.
Gateway
A network gateway is a computer, software or device that is directly connected withthe external network i.e. internet. All the incoming and outgoing traffic of a networkpasses through the gateway. Gateway computers are kept very secure as the can beattacked directly through the internet and in case of any security holes andweaknesses in the gateway computer, all the computers in a network can beattacked.
Backbone
A backbone is a main line of wire such as fiber optic cable that connects two or morebig networks such as ISPs.
PC - Basically is a personal computer

Networking is required to make accessible communication between computers possible by a network connection. Networking allows for many possibilities, such as accessing the internet, file sharing, file transferring, networks attacks and system communication. Let’s look at the different types of networking ways
Types of Networks:
LAN(Local Area Networking)
WLAN(Wireless Local Area Networks)
WAN(Wide Area Networks)
MAN(Metropolitan Area Networks)
CAN(Campus Area Networks)
SAN(Storage or Sytem Area Network)
PAN(Personal Area Network)
Dan(Desk Area Network)

Difference between Internet and Intranet



Internet  System network connectivity for everyone, anybody can access any online webpages from any places across globe. Anybody can view any webpages unless other webpages are restricted for selected online user through User ID and Password.
Internet is the name given to the global network or worldwide network of computers. The most important term to be understood in this respect is the Internet Protocol address, which is known as IP address in its short form. IP address is specifically allotted to a computer to identify the same on the internet. It is a unique set of numbers such as 49.204.37.205. Even when you type 'IP address' in Google Search text box, the IP address of your system will be immediately displayed. Such is the speed of finding the IP address of any system. The internet protocol suite is usually termed as TCP/IP. It is through the IP address that your computer's location can be found out. The website addresses like http://www.techulator.com have to be translated into the numbered IP address of the website. Whatever the browser Internet Explorer, Netscape, Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox you are using will first access a Domain Name Server (DNS) computer to find out and return an IP address or it will give an error message if the name is not found. This is the reason why you are displayed an error message most of the times when the DNS does not find the IP address you have typed in the address bar. 
Internet
1. Internet is wide network of computers and is open for all.
2. Internet itself contains a large number of intranets.
3. The number of users who use internet is Unlimited.
4. The Visitors traffic is unlimited.
5. Internet contains different source of information and is available for all.

Intranet System network connectivity within organization and nowhere outside the organization. User can access only particular webpages or any other related information from it and this will have a different IP address. Here you have to be an authorized user to access webpages as well
Intranet
Intranet also refers to the network of computers but it is not available to the world outside the intranet. These types of intranet networks are used in big organizations. For example, we can take the example of an organization, office or an institution which has a number of PCs and printers which have to networked together. This network of computers and printers, which will have network connections within the organization, will not be connected or available to the outside world. One selected drive from one of the PCs would serve as a directory of web pages that will form the intranet. All other PCs in the network of the organization will access this intranet by pointing the browser used by these computers to this directory. The rest of the navigation is done in the same way as we do in the internet. Intranet network when connected to the internet, the intranet will reside behind a firewall. If the organization wants the intranet to allow access to the internet, it will be called an extranet. It is the firewall that controls the access between the intranet and internet to permit access to the internet only to the selected or all the employees of the organization. This is how certain organizations bar the access of social networking websites on their intranet to certain members of the organization. 
Intranet
1. Intranet is also a network of computers designed for a specific group of users.
2. Intranet can be accessed from Internet but with restrictions.
3. The number of users is limited.
4. The traffic allowed is also limited.
5. Intranet contains only specific group information.
       Therefore the Internet is an open, public space, while an intranet is designed to be a private space. An intranet may be accessible from the Internet, but it is protected by a password and accessible only to authorized users

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