ASSIGNMENT

OF
WIT

By
Name: Avinash kumar Rai
Course: MBA
Semester: 2nd Semester
Section: RETAIL

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS

STUDIES
KHB Main Road, R.T. Nagar Post, Bangalore 560 032.

2008 09

LOCAL AREA NETWORK

DEFINITITON:A local area network (LAN) is a group of computers and associated
devices that share a common communications line or wireless link.
Typically, connected devices share the resources of a single
processor or server within a small geographic area (for example,
within an office building). Usually, the server has applications and
data storage that are shared in common by multiple computer users.
A local area network may serve as few as two or three users (for
example, in a home network) or as many as thousands of users (for
example, in an FDDI network).

Major local area network technologies are:

Ethernet: - Ethernet is the most widely-installed local area network
(LAN) technology. Specified in a standard, IEEE 802.3, Ethernet was
originally developed by Xerox from an earlier specification called
Alohanet (for the Palo Alto Research Center Aloha network) and then
developed further by Xerox, DEC, and Intel. An Ethernet LAN
typically uses coaxial cable or special grades of twisted pair wires.
Ethernet is also used in wireless LANs. The most commonly installed
Ethernet systems are called 10BASE-T and provide transmission
speeds up to 10 Mbps.

Token Ring :-

A Token Ring network is a local area network

(LAN) in which all computers are connected in a ring or star topology

and a bit- or token-passing scheme is used in order to prevent the

collision of data between two computers that want to send messages
at the same time. The Token Ring protocol is the second most widelyused protocol on local area networks after Ethernet.

FDDI:-

FDDI is a product of American National Standards

Committee X3-T9 and conforms to the Open Systems
Interconnection (OSI) model of functional layering. It can be used to
interconnect LANs using other protocols. FDDI-II is a version of FDDI
that adds the capability to add circuit-switched service to the network
so that voice signals can also be handled. Work is underway to
connect FDDI networks to the developing Synchronous Optical
Network (SONET).

METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORK

A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a network that interconnects
users with computer resources in a geographic area or region larger
than that covered by even a large local area network (LAN) but
smaller than the area covered by a wide area network (WAN). The
term is applied to the interconnection of networks in a city into a
single larger network (which may then also offer efficient connection
to a wide area network). It is also used to mean the interconnection of
several local area networks by bridging them with backbone lines.
The latter usage is also sometimes referred to as a campus network.
Examples of metropolitan area networks of various sizes can be
found in the metropolitan areas of London, England; Lodz, Poland;
and Geneva, Switzerland. Large universities also sometimes use the
term to describe their networks. A recent trend is the installation of
wireless MANs

WIDE AREA NETWORK

WAN stands for Wide Area Network. As its name suggests, it is a
computer network that covers a far wider area than a LAN (Local
Area Network). WANs cover cities, countries, continents and the
whole world.
A WAN is formed by linking LANs together. For example, several
major LANs in a city can connect together forming a WAN.
When networks connect to form a bigger network (a bigger WAN), the
resulting network is called an internet work, which is generically
abbreviated to an internet. Now when all WANs in the world connect
forming a global internet, we call it The Internet, which everyone
knows! Thats why the Internet is always written with a capital.
A WAN spans a large geographic area, such as a state, province or
country. WANs often connect multiple smaller networks, such as local
area networks (LANs) or metro area networks (MANs).
The world's most popular WAN is the Internet. Some segments of the
Internet, like VPN-based extranets, are also WANs in themselves.
Finally, many WANs are corporate or research networks that utilize
leased lines.
WANs generally utilize different and much more expensive
networking equipment than do LANs. Key technologies often found in
WANs include SONET, Frame Relay, and ATM.

RING NETWORK
A ring network is a local area network (LAN) in which the nodes
(workstations or other devices) are connected in a closed loop
configuration. Adjacent pairs of nodes are directly connected. Other
pairs of nodes are indirectly connected, the data passing through one
or more intermediate nodes.
The ring topology may prove optimum when system requirements are
modest and workstations are at scattered points. If the workstations
are reasonably close to the vertices of a convex polygon (such as the
pentagon shown in the illustration), the cost can be lower than that of
any other topology when cable routes are chosen to minimize the
total length of cable needed.
A break in the cable of a ring network may result in degraded data
speed between pairs of workstations for which the data path is
increased as a result of the break. If two breaks occur and they are
not both in the same section of cable, some workstations will be cut
off from some of the others. When system reliability is a critical
concern, a BUS NETWORKor STAR NETWORK may prove superior
to a ring network. If redundancy is required, the MESH NETWORK
topology may be preferable.

BUS-NETWORK
A bus network is simple and reliable. If one node fails to operate, all
the rest can still communicate with each other. For a major disruption
to take place, the bus itself must be broken somewhere. Bus
networks are easy to expand. Additional nodes can be added
anywhere along the bus.

STAR-NETWORK
A star network is a local area network (LAN) in which all nodes
(workstations or other devices) are directly connected to a common
central computer. Every workstation is indirectly connected to every
other through the central computer. In some star networks, the central
computer can also operate as a workstation.
If the workstations are reasonably close to the vertices of a convex
polygon and the system requirements are modest, the ring network
topology may serve the intended purpose at lower cost than the star
network topology. If the workstations lie nearly along a straight line,
the bus network topology may be best.

MESH-NETWORK
A mesh network is a local area network (LAN) that employs one of
two connection arrangements, full mesh topology or partial mesh
topology. In the full mesh topology, each node (workstation or other
device) is connected directly to each of the others. In the partial mesh
topology, some nodes are connected to all the others, but some of
the nodes are connected only to those other nodes with which they
exchange the most data.