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Computer network is a system connecting two or more computers. A computer network allows
user to exchange data quickly, access and share resources including equipments, application software,
and information.
Data communications systems are the electronic systems that transmit data over communications
lines from one location to another. You might use data communications through your microcomputer
to send information to a friend using another computer. You might work for an organization whose
computer system is spread throughout a building, or even throughout the country or world. That is, all
the parts—input and output units, processor, and storage devices—are in different places and linked
by communications. Or you might use telecommunications lines—telephone lines—to tap into
information located in an outside data bank. You could then transmit it to your microcomputer for
your own reworking and analysis.
To attach to a network, a special-purpose hardware component is used to handle all the
transmission. The hardware is called a network adapter card or network interface card (NIC), it is
a printed circuit board plugged into a computer's bus, and a cable connects it to a network
medium.
Communications networks differ in geographical size. There are three important types:
LANs, MANs, and WANs.
Local Area Networks
Networks with computers and peripheral devices in close physical
proximity—within the same building, for instance—are called local area networks (LANs).
Linked by cable-telephone, coaxial, or fiber optic. LANs often use a bus form organization. In a
LAN, people can share different equipments, which lower the cost of equipments. LAN may be
linked to other LANs or to larger networks by using a network gateway. With the gateway, one
LAN may be connected to the LAN of another LAN of another office group. It may also be
connected to others in the wide world, even if their configurations are different. Alternatively, a
network bridge would be used to connect networks with the same configurations.
There is a newly development for LANs: WLAN. A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a flexible
data communication system implemented as an extension to, or as an alternative for, a wired
LAN within a building or campus. Using electromagnetic waves, WLANs transmit and receive
data over the air, minimizing the need for wired connections. Thus, WLANs combine data
connectivity with user mobility, and, through simplified configuration, enable movable LANs.
Over the recent several years, WLANs have gained strong popularity in a number of vertical
markets, including the health-care, retail, manufacturing, warehousing, and academic arenas.
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These industries have profited from the productivity gains of using hand-held terminals and
notebook computers to transmit real-time information to centralized hosts for processing. Today
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