NETWORKING

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Networking is a process of connecting two or more computers for sharing. Through the networking, computers share information such as email, file, documents and resources such as printer, internet and disk storage. This article presents a brief overview of what computer networking is and how it works.

Networking has single purpose and that is sharing. So if you have nothing to share, networking has nothing for you. If you anything to share, networking is everything for you. Computer networking is not a new concept. It has been here since the computers used to look like abacuses. At that time networking was used to share abacus answer with others. Over the time abacuses became computers and networking became more sophisticated. However the purpose of networking is still same: sharing the information as fast as possible. To achieve this goal networks now use electrical cables, fiber optical cables, and wireless radio signals.

Internet interconnects thousands of millions of computing devices including PCs, Laptops, Workstations, Server, Smartphones, tablets, TVs, Webcams, Environmental devices, Automobiles, Security cameras and many mores. In Networking all these devices are known as Hosts or End system or End devices. Computer networks use communication links to connection end devices with each other's. Communication links use different types of physical media such as coaxial cable, electrical cable, copper cable, fiber optical cable and radio spectrum. Different media types can transmit data at different rate that is measured in bits/second. Every media type has its limit that is measured in speed, distance, signal loose etc.

When a computer has data for another computer in network it initiates a session for transmission. During this process both computers finalized the rules of transmission such as speed of transmission, size of data file, security measurement of transmission, flow control etc. These rules are called protocols. Protocols control the entire data transmission through the network. Protocols are defined in various network models such as TCP/IP Layer model, OSI Layer model.

End devices that users use to access the shared resources. Usually they run desktop version of OS such as Window 10, Window 7, and Window XP. Client computers are also known as workstations.

Certain computer resources can be shared in the network such as hard disk, printer, scanner, modem etc. This allows us to track down the uses of resources. For example a network administrator can setup a printer server and share it in network. Then user can use printer server for printing. Now administrator needs only to monitor the print server instead of individual workstations.