Computer Network

A computer network is an interconnection between general purpose programmable devices that deals with the handling of data. It is a group of two or more computers which are connected to each other electronically. Hence they can speak to each other and can send or receive information from other computers. There are different types of computer networks which are:

1.) LAN( Local area network)- Through this we can connect two or more computers and can call it as a corporate network which is in a office or business setting.

2.) WAN(Wide area network)- This is also called an internet network because it connects two or more smaller networks together. The largest internetwork at present is the internet. As there is the wide distance between the networks it is called Wide area network.

As we all know computers can be a part of several different networks and networks can be a part of bigger networks. Now LAN in a small business is connected to the corporate network of the bigger company. Any machine at any level of the company can access the internet.
All the operating systems (Microsoft windows, Linux, Apple Macintosh) at present use TCP/IP for networking

In order to set up a network we need an appropriate media which can be a wired or wireless. To setup the network we can use twisted pair, co-axial or fiber-optic cables to do the networking in wired network, and infra-red blue-tooth, radio-wave, micro-wave etc can be used in the wireless network. If you are working on the wide range of network we have to use some additional devices such as bridges, gateway or router to connect different small or large networks. And thus protocol has to be maintained.

Now to set up a network we have to select an appropriate topology to arrange the hardware devices using the already selected media. The different kinds of topologies are:
1.) Bus topology
2.) Ring topology
3.) Star topology
4.) Tree topology
5.) Object oriented topology

The star-topology and tree-topology are the most popular topologies which are being used now days.