3. What is a Network? In the computer world, the term network means two or more connected computers that can share resources like data and applications, office machines, an Internet connection, or some combination of these.

4. What is a LAN? A local area network (LAN) is usually restricted to spanning a particular geographic location

5. Let’s connect these LAN’s together…

6. Hosts/Workstations communicate to a Server The term host is used to describe pretty much anything that takes an IP address. You also see that the hosts can access the servers across the network—pretty much the general idea of having a network.

7. What is a Virtual LAN (VLAN)? VLANs are the new workgroups, and they define the same thing: a group of users sharing network resources. The difference is that VLANs allow you to be anywhere on the physical network and still be local to the specific network resources you need.

8. Routers create an Internetwork WAN networks are what we use to span large geographic areas and truly go the distance. Like the Internet, WANs usually employ both routers and public links, so that’s generally the criteria used to define them.

9. Routers create an Internetwork

10. What is a VPN? A VPN actually makes your local host part of the remote network by using the WAN link that connects you to the remote LAN. The VPN will make your host appear as though it’s actually local on the remote network!

14. Peer-to-Peer Networks (cont’d.) Figure 1-1 Resource sharing on a simple peer-to-peer network

17. Peer-to-Peer Networking

20. Client/Server Networks (cont’d.) Figure 1-2 Resource sharing on a client/server network

25. LANs, MANs, and WANs (cont’d.) Figure 1-3 A more complex client/server network

27. LANs, MANs, and WANs (cont’d.) Figure 1-4 A simple WAN

30. Elements Common to Client/Server Networks (cont’d.) Figure 1-5 A NIC (network interface card)

33. Elements Common to Client/Server Networks (cont’d.) Figure 1-6 A LAN backbone

34. Elements Common to Client/Server Networks (cont’d.) Figure 1-7 Common network topologies

36. Elements Common to Client/Server Networks (cont’d.) Figure 1-8 Examples of network transmission media

46. Client Server Networks

48. A Physical Bus Topology

52. Bus (cont’d.) Figure 5-1 A terminated bus topology network

54. A Physical Ring Topology

57. Physical Star Topology

62. A Physical MESH Topology

63. Point-to-point Topologies

64. Point-to-Multipoint Topology

65. Point-to-Multipoint Example 2

66. Hybrid Topology

69. Star-Wired Ring (cont’d.) Figure 5-4 A star-wired ring topology network

71. Star-Wired Bus (cont’d.) Figure 5-5 A star-wired bus topology network

72. Backbones and Segments

78. Distributed Backbone (cont’d.) Figure 5-7 A simple distributed backbone

79. Distributed Backbone (cont’d.) Figure 5-8 A distributed backbone connecting multiple LANs