An Overview of Networks
Networks have been around for quite some time. And as with most things, they keep changing, becoming faster and hopefully better. While one can never escape legacy networking, the majority of today's networks follow standard architectures, topologies, and protocols, which you'll learn about in this chapter. While we will spend a brief amount of time on the history of networking, we will concentrate the majority of our effort learning about concepts relevant to today's networking.
Lesson Objectives
Upon successfully completing this lesson, you should:
- Understand the history of networking;
- Be able to differentiate between a LAN, MAN, WAN, and PAN;
- Understand the difference between a peer-to-peer and client-server architecture;
- Be able to differentiate between network topologies, including Bus, Star, Ring, Mesh, and Hub.
Reading Assignment
Networking Essentials Plus: Pages 10-48