Chapter III

Network Types

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3.1 Network Types
Local Area Network(LAN)
 Networks infrastructures can vary greatly in terms of:
• The size of the area covered
• The number of users connected
• The number and types of services available
 An individual network usually spans a single geographical area,
providing services and applications to people within a common
organizational structure, such as a single business, campus or region.
 This type of network is called a Local Area Network (LAN).
 A LAN is usually administered by a single organization.
 The administrative control that governs the security and access control
policies are enforced on the network level.

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Metropolitan Area Network
 A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a computer network that
usually spans a city or a large campus.
 A MAN usually interconnects a number of local area networks (LANs)
using a high-capacity backbone technology, such as fiber-optical links,
and provides up-link services to wide area networks(or WAN) and the
Internet.
 A MAN is optimized for a larger geographical area than a LAN,
ranging from several blocks of buildings to entire cities.
 MANs can also depend on communications channels of moderate-to-
high data rates.
 A MAN might be owned and operated by a single organization, but it
usually will be used by many individuals and organizations.
 MANs might also be owned and operated as public utilities.
 They will often provide means for internetworking of local networks

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Wide Area Network
 When a company or organization has locations that are separated by
large geographical distances, it may be necessary to use a
telecommunications service provider (TSP) to interconnect the LANs at
the different locations.
 Telecommunications service providers operate large regional networks
that can span long distances.
 Traditionally, TSPs transported voice and data communications on
separate networks.
 Increasingly, these providers are offering converged information
network services to their subscribers.
 Individual organizations usually lease connections through a
telecommunications service provider network.
 These networks that connect LANs in geographically separated
locations are referred to as Wide Area Networks (WANs).

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WAN(cont…)
 Although the organization maintains all of the policies and
administration of the LANs at both ends of the connection, the policies
within the communications service provider network are controlled by
the TSP.
 WANs use specifically designed network devices to make the
interconnections between LANs.
 Because of the importance of these devices to the network, configuring,
installing and maintaining these devices are skills that are integral to the
function of an organization's network.
 LANs and WANs are very useful to individual organizations. They
connect the users within the organization.
 They allow many forms of communication including exchange e-mails,
corporate training, and other resource sharing.

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Internet: A network of Networks
 Although there are benefits to using a LAN or WAN, most of us need to
communicate with a resource on another network, outside of our local
organization.
 Examples of this type of communication include:
• Sending an e-mail to a friend in another country
• Accessing news or products on a website
• Getting a file from a neighbor's computer
• Instant messaging with a relative in another city
• Following a favorite sporting team's performance on a cell phone
Internetwork
 A global mesh of interconnected networks (internetworks) meets these
human communication needs.
 Some of these interconnected networks are owned by large public and
private organizations, such as government agencies or industrial
enterprises, and are reserved for their exclusive use.
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Internet(cont…)
 The most well-known and widely used publicly-accessible internetwork
is the Internet.
 The Internet is created by the interconnection of networks belonging to
Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
 These ISP networks connect to each other to provide access for millions
of users all over the world.
 Ensuring effective communication across this diverse infrastructure
requires the application of consistent and commonly recognized
technologies and protocols as well as the cooperation of many network
administration agencies.
Intranet
 The term intranet is often used to refer to a private connection of LANs
and WANs that belongs to an organization, and is designed to be
accessible only by the organization's members, employees, or others
with authorization.
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 Note: The following terms
may be interchangeable:
internetwork, data network,
and network.
 A connection of two or
more data networks forms
an internetwork - a network
of networks.
 It is also common to refer to
an internetwork as a data
network - or simply as a
network - when considering
communications at a high
level. The usage of terms
depends on the context at
the time and terms may
often be interchanged.
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 Network Application Architecture

• Application architecture is designed by the application developer and dictates

how the application is structured over the various end systems.
• When choosing the developer can choose among the two predominant
architectural paradigms used in modern network application.
• Client server architecture and
• Peer to peer architecture
• Hybrid of client-server and P2P

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 Client-server architecture
server:
– always-on host
– permanent IP address
– server farms for scaling
clients:
– communicate with server
– may be intermittently
connected
client/server – may have dynamic IP
addresses
– do not communicate
directly with each other

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Often in client server
application, a single host server
is incapable of keeping up with
all the request from its clients.
 For example Facebook or
Google will quickly be
overwhelmed if it has only one
server handling all of its
requests.
 For this reason, a large
cluster of hosts- some times
referred as data centers are
often used to create a powerful
virtual server.

Fig. One of Google data center

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 Pure P2P architecture
• no always-on server
• arbitrary end systems directly
communicate
• peers are intermittently connected
and change IP addresses peer-peer
• They are not owned by internet
service providers
• They are simple desktop, laptop
controlled by users
• Highly scalable but difficult to
manage
• Peer to peer application examples
– Emule , bit torrent, internet
telephony

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 Hybrid of client-server and P2P
Skype
– voice-over-IP P2P application
– centralized server: finding address of remote party:
– client-client connection: direct (not through server)
Instant messaging
– chatting between two users is P2P
– centralized service: client presence detection/location
• user registers its IP address with central server when it
comes online
• user contacts central server to find IP addresses of
buddies

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Network Topology and Design

Bus Topology
• A bus topology connects all stations in a linear fashion

Figure-1: Bus topology

• Bus topology advantages:
• It is inexpensive
• It is easy to design and implement because the stations are
simply daisy-chained together
• Bus topology disadvantages:

• It is difficult to troubleshoot
• It requires termination
 Star Topology
• The star network configuration is
the most popular physical topology
• In a star configuration, all
computers or stations are wired
directly to a central location:
• Concentrator (a.k.a. hub)
• Multistation Access Unit (MAU)
• A data signal from any station goes
directly to this central device, which
transmits the signal according to the
established network access method
for the type of network Figure-2: Star topology
• Star topology advantages:
• A break in one cable does not affect all other stations as it does in bus
technologies
• Problems are easier to locate because symptoms often point to one station
• The second-easiest topology to design and install
• Does not require manual termination
• Instead the media is terminated in the station at the transceiver on the
NIC and in the hub or MAU
• Star topology disadvantages:
• Hubs, which are required for a star topology, are more expensive than bus
connectors
• A failure at the hub can affect the entire configuration and all connected
stations
• Uses more cable than bus topologies
• Bus and star topologies can be combined to form a star/bus or bus/star
physical topology
• Hubs that have connectors for coaxial cable as well as for twisted-pair
wiring are used to form these types of networks
• When different physical topologies are applied to a network, the result
is often called a mixed media network
Ring Topology

• Physical rings
• Most often seen in Fiber
Distributed Data Interface
(FDDI) networks
• FDDI is a WAN technology
• Stations on a ring are
wired to one another in a
circle around the entire
network

Fig 3. Ring Topology

• Ring topology advantages:
• It prevents network collisions because of the media access method
or architecture required
• Each station functions as a repeater, so the topology does not
require additional network hardware, such as hubs
• Ring topology disadvantages:
• As in a bus network, a failure at one point can bring down the
network
• Because all stations are wired together, to add a station the network
must be shut down temporarily
• Maintenance on a ring is more difficult than on a star topology
because an adjustment or reconfiguration affects the entire ring