Have you ever needed to have more than one home computer for you and your family? Do you have two or more computers, but need to copy and/or share files and/or programs between them, but you don’t know how? Do all of your computers need Internet access, but you don’t want to have a phone line installed for each of them? Well, you can do all of this. I know, because this is what I did at my home. After doing research I found that there are several advantages for having your own Home Computer Network. Following, are several reasons to do this in your house.
First, by having an in-home computer network, and a file server, you can have a central location for storing all of your information. So, if you need more than one computer to access certain information, such as fonts, financial files, games, etc., you can do this through the network. This also eliminates the need for copying files to floppy diskettes, hand-carrying them to the other computers, and copying the files one-floppy-at-a-time to each, individual computer. This would be a very slow process, compared to a fast network speed. Additionally, if one computer on your network crashes, you can move to another computer and continue your work. So, if you use your network and file server effectively, you can have a high degree of reliability, security, and efficiency.
Second, an in-home computer network can allow you to have only one Internet connection while giving Internet access to all computers on your network. This is very important if you only have one phone line. If you were to add an additional phone line for each computer you wanted to be connected to the Internet, well, let’s just say that this would be a costly alternative. By using your file server on your network, as a PROXY server, you can just use one phone line to connect to the Internet. All you have to do is install a small PROXY program that says, “I am the Internet connection for this network. Everybody aim their Internet browsing at me!” It’s really that simple. By doing this, it fools the other computers on your network into thinking that the file server IS the Internet. In addition to being connected via one phone line, and one computer, your file server can have what is called a “Firewall.” This eliminates outside intruders from invading your network.
In conclusion, a local area network is made up of computers and a myriad of devices, such as routers, servers, switches, and firewalls. In order for it to connect to the Internet, a router must be installed. Servers provide special functions such as printing, file sharing, etc. Switches connect the computers together from different parts of the network. Firewalls prevent unauthorized access. There are a host of other devices that may be used as well. These devices are hubs, gateways, repeaters, wireless access points,
With remote storage systems hackers can secretly backup files from computers and can access them later. It creates the possible theft of hackers sending virus out, stealing confidential and personal information from others.
The increasing use of NAT comes from a number of factors. The major factor is that there is a world shortage of IP addresses. As the Internet has grown, assigning perfectly good network addresses to private networks came to be seen as a waste. Under the Network Address Translation (NAT) standard, certain IP addresses were set aside for reuse by private networks. In addition to reducing the number of IPv4 addresses needed, NAT also provides a layer of obscurity for the private network, because all hosts outside of the private network observe communication through the one shared IP address. NAT is not the same thing as a firewall or a proxy server, but it does contribute to security. NAT also succeeds in the ease and flexibility of network administration. It can divide a large network into several smaller ones by exposing only one IP address to the outside, which means that computers can be added, removed, or have their addresses changed without impacting external networks. Other benefits include Protocol-level protection, Automatic client computer configuration control, and Packet level filtering and routing.
In this modern times a revolution is taking place. Quietly this revolution has started and grown that it involved the world. A revolution is a sudden change in the way people live (Merriam-Webster). The birth of computer networking started during the early 1970's and began to flourish during the late 1970's. Various manufacturers in the computer industry launched small minicomputers with enough computational power to cater the needs of several users. Because of the cheap prices of such computers, every department in sizable organizations can afford one. In order to interconnect minicomputers and allow swift transfer of information among them, a number of organizations started to install Local Area Networks. Because LAN Technology is both cheap and easy to install, an individual department can buy, install and operate a LAN for their minicomputers without seeking the help of the administration (Comer, 2007)
This technology has some benefits over ethernet routed networks. First, a 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps shared media can be changed to 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps of dedicated bandwidth. Routers have many devices attached to their ports, sharing the bandwidth. Switches let you to connect either a shared segment of bandwidth (workgroup) or a dedicated one (server) to each port. Second, this can be done without changing any software or hardware already on the workstations Finally, a switch installation is less complex than a bridge/router configuration.
Figure 2.11 above shows the network topology in a single lab. In the lab, a star topology is used to connect a printer, a wireless access point and 50 personal computers with a single special device known as switch. Instead of using hub, a switch is used to identify which computer system is connecting to which port. Switch knows exactly where a frame is received from and which port it wants to send to, without increasing the network response time. Unlike a hub which divides the bandwidth among the systems when multiple PCs are broadcasting, switch enables system users to access the maximum amount of bandwidth regardless the number of PCs transmitting. Thus, a switch is considered as a better choice than a hub because it maintains the performance instead of degrading.
Everyday when ET returns from his classes to his apartment he eagerly yearns to throw himself on top his comfy chair and simply surf the internet at his own convenience. Unfortunately, ET is living with two other roommates that maliciously wish to use all of their bandwidth on a daily basis. Ah, the horror! Luckily, ET has pondered away during his free time of how to resolve this emerging conflict. He has carefully noted that his apartment contains three computers: two desktops and one laptop. After consulting with his trusty side-kick, Andy Chung or better known as Andy, both of them absolutely believe that the most optimal solution to this conflict is to purchase a router. However, during ET's brief time in researching about routers he has discovered that he could a) purchase a wired router or b) purchase a wireless router.
Fifteen Years ago computers were just an expensive typewriter, calculator, and entertainment center thrown together in one box. People transferred their tiny files with floppy disk. The computer itself seldom had a hard drive. It was an amazing feat to dial into a computer bulletin board, and talk to other users of systems. Networking computers was more or less unheard of. The only exception were mainframes that might span several buildings, with terminals, or dial in terminals. The internet, and TCP/IP were developed by the Department of Defense so as to be able to link together several LANs around the country. Each individual system was built sometimes by different vendors, and were sometimes incompatible. For example I can remember my father telling me while he was working at Perkin Elmer that they had to link from San Diego to Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado with two dissimilar systems. TCP/IP was a robust common language that could be used.
The use of the computer has had a dramatic impact on everything we as individuals and businesses do since its inception. Computers have gone from being the size of an entire room to something that can be held in your hand. They have also become a main source of storage. The need for storage has grown by leaps and bounds as more types and amounts of data are transferred and stored. Words, images, streaming video are all types of storage that are being housed on networks today.
Local Area Networks also called LANs have been a major player in industrialization of computers. In the past 20 or so years the worlds industry has be invaded with new computer technology. It has made such an impact on the way we do business that it has become essential with an ever-growing need for improvement. LANs give an employer the ability to share information between computers with a simple relatively inexpensive system of network cards and software. It also lets the user or users share hardware such as Printers and scanners. The speed of access between the computers is lighting fast because the data has a short distance to cover. In most cases a LAN only occupies one or a group of buildings located next to each other. For larger area need there are several other types of networks such as the Internet.
Centralized management and better security: The Company will be able to manage hundreds of computers scattered all over the premises or even across a certain geographical location. All those desktops can be managed in one central location.
A network can be based on either a peer-to-peer level or server-based, also referred to as domain-based. To distinguish the difference, a peer-to-peer network, also known as a workgroup, is a network in which a group of computers are connected together to share resources, such as files, applications, or peripherals. The computers in a peer-to-peer network are peers to one another, meaning no single computer has control over one another. There is also no central location for users to access resources, which means that each individual computer must share their files in order for other computers to have access (Muller, 2003, p.411). “In a peer-to-peer environment, access rights are governed by setting sharing permissions on individual machines.” (Cope, 2002) On the other hand, in a domain-based network, the computers connected together are either servers or clients. All of the other computers connected to the network are called client computers. The server is a dedicated machine that acts as a central location for users to share and access resources. The server controls the level of authority each user has to the shared resources. When logging on to the network, users on client machines are authenticated by the server, based on a user name and password (Lowe, 2004, p.13).
In this day and age, networks are everywhere. The internet has also revolutionized around world. We tend to take for grantedthat computers should be connected together. When it comes to networking, it's hard to believe that the field is still a relatively young one, especially when it comes to hooking up small computers like PCs. In approaching any discussion of networking, it is very useful to take a step back and look at networking from a high level. What is it, exactly, and why is it now considered? So, it important that it is assumed that most PCs and other devices should be networked. Computer network is the best way to take advantage of more than one computer resources by sharing these resources , such as storage space ,
This proposal is for a small office that will have users who are connected by Wi-Fi or cable. The network will include devices and resources that is shared among all the users. The network will need to have security measures in place to protect the entire network and keep the wireless access secure and available only to employees of the company.
AS we look further into the Next-Generation home we will find a network of appliances that are linked to the Web through various non-traditional devices such as; PDA's, TV's, ovens, and phones. The Next-Generation home receives information continuously and effortlessly which makes it simple to receive updates to an electronic phone book or downloading e-mails from the office to a PDA. With the non-traditional devices linked to the Web, this makes the PC no longer the sole connection point within the network (The Network Home, 2006).