High Speed Network Technology:Local Area Network and Wide Area Network

LAN (LOCAL AREA NETWORK):

Now a days with increasing number of businesses and organizations, there is also a need to transfer data between one or more computers reside within one campus or one office. To fulfill such a demand of any business, organization, there is one robust and faster interconnecting technology is available i.e. LAN (Local Area Network). With the LAN, one or more computers can interconnect with one another.

Establishment of LAN:

There are different topologies are available in the market to establish a LAN connection. Such topologies include Star Topology, Ring Topology, Bus Topology and much more. Lets see how these topologies work:

If we talk about Star Topology then there is a central controller in Star Topology which manages all communication between different computer systems.

If we talk about Bus Topology then there is not any central controller in it. In Bus Topology, number of computer systems are connected with single co-axial cable (known as bus) and the control is in the hand of all computer systems. There is one limitation is also that two computers can not transfer data at the same time.

Finally in Ring Topology, there is also not any centralized control in network. Control is divided between different systems which are connected within Ring Topology. There is a concept of Token in Ring Topology. Token is a binary code and it is passed around the Ring. In Ring Topology, there are different work stations and all work stations are connected to each other to create a continuous loop. In Ring Topology, two computer can not transfer data at the same time. A computer which has token can transmit data. After transfering data, that computer puts token back in the ring and another computer takes it to transmit data.

Classification of LANs:

As per the speed, LANs can be classified in three parts:

High Speed LAN - Preferable for server computers.
Medium Speed LAN - Preferable for small servers and PCs.
Low Speed LAN - Preferable to link PCs and work stations.

Internet (Synonym of WAN):

Network of network is called WAN or Internet. Internet is a world wide computer network. With the Internet on other word is also connected with it i.e. WWW (World Wide Web). Simply WWW is a collection of resources which any can access from anywhere in the world on Internet. Such resources include any type of image, video clip, text documents, database etc.

Whole Internet works on the base of Client-Server Architecture. Client is a computer system which makes any request through browser's address bar and the server is a computer system which responds to requests made by the client. Transmission of data on the internet is possible because of HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol).