Networking Devices

Networking Devices

Ratings:10+5=15

Introducing Networking Device:

• Networking: Network is a collaboration or connection of two or more zones or devices through a common linking method. The network allows the nodes to share resources between the linked systems. This is applicable in telecommunication, internet &  even online data sharing.
• Computer Hardware: Computer hardware is the physical part of the laptop or computer used for storing data, connecting, viewing & listening. The use of computer hardware in networking is detailed.
• LAN & WAN devices: LAN, Local Area Network is a collection of devices or computer connectors to a common several. WAN or Wife Area Network devices cover a gige amount of area as the network apan longer. The devices can be connected through satellite & leased line.
• Collision: In order to understand networking devices, knowledge of collision is important. A network collision occurs when two network devices tries to transmit the same data at the same point of time. If the network detects such a collision, it discards both the packets received.

What is the use of network devices?

Network devices or internetworking devices are used to establish a network connection inside the corporate environment. Take a look at the concept of internetworking devices & how they work.

There are certain hardware devices used within the network to connect two or more computers or peripherals.

• NIC
• Repeater
• HUB
• Bridge
• Switch
• Gateway
• Router
• Modem

The networking devices are intelligently designed to connect two or more computers through a data path. Apart from sharing files, these devices enable printer & fax machines sharing. The communicating devices set up a path that connects all computers in the network.

NIC: NIC stands for Network Interface Card. Sometimes it is also called by the name "Network Interface Controller". It is indeed a circuit board or a card that is installed in a computer so that it can be connected to a network. Actually the NIC provides the computers with a dedicated, full-time connection to a network.

Personal computers & workstations on a Local Area Network (LAN) typically contain a NIC specifically designed for the LAN transmission technology. Also there is WLAN (Wireless LAN) card.

Repeater: Repeater is a network device, which is used to regenerate or replicate a signal. It removes unwanted nokar in an incoming signal. Unlike an analog signal, the original digital signal, even if weak or disorted, can be clearly perceived & resorted. With analog transmission, signals are re-strenghtened with amplifiers which unfortunately also amplify noise as well as information. Repeater operates at Layer 1 of OSI.

Hub: Basically a Hub is a common connection point for devices in a network. Hubs are commonly used to connect segments of a LAN. A Hub contains multiple ports. When a packet arrives at one port, it is copied to the other ports so that all segments of the LAN can see all packets. HUB operates at Layer 1 of OSI.

Bridge: Bridge devices inspect incoming network traffic & determine whether to forward or discard it according to its intended destination. An Ethernet bridge, for example, inspects each incoming Ethernet frame, including the source & destination MAC addresses, & sometimes the frame size in mankind individual forwarding decisions. Bridge devices operate at the data link layer (Layer 2) of OSI Model.

Switch: A switch is a very common type of networking device that channels coming data from any of multiple input ports to the specific output port that will take the data toward it's intended destination in a telecommunications network. In the traditional circuit switched telephone network, one or more switches are used to set up a dedicated communication through temporary connection or circuit for data exchange between two or more network devices. On an Ethernet LAN, the switch determines from the physical device like MAC address in each incoming message frame which output port to forward it to & out of. In an Internet, a switch determines from the IP address in each packet, & the output port of switch is connected to the next part of the intended destination.

Gateway: A gateway is a network node which connects two networks in different protocols. Gateways can take several forms, including routers & computers can perform a variety of tasks.

These range from simply passing traffic onto the next hop on its path to offering complex traffic filtering, proxies or protocol translations at various network layers. The most common gateway is the internet gateway, which connects a home or enterprise network to the internet. An internet gateway also often acts as a security node, variously filling one or more security roles, such as proxy server, firewall or Network Address Translation (NAT) server. Software- Defined WAN ( SD-WAN) & virtual WAN systems serve as gateways between an enterprise network & two or more Wide Area Networks (WANs).

Router: Router is one of the most used networking devices used to share internet connection between two devices. The operation of router is complicated as it can be both software & hardware & operates at Layer 3 if OSI.

The connection established through router can be:

• Ethernet to Ethernet- in this scenario, the main router can either be Linksys or a third party & will be referred to as the main router. The second router should be Linksys & will be called secondary router. If you want to cascade a non-Linksys router to the main router, you need to call its manufacturer for support.
• MAN to WAN- Connecting one of the Ethernet ports of the main router (MAN) to the Internet port (WAN port) of the secondary router. This type of shopping requires the main router & the secondary router to have different IP segments. This connection makes it easier to identify which router the computers & other devices in the network are connected to since they will have different LAN IP segments. However, computers that are connected to the main router will not be able to communicate with the secondary router, & vice versa since there are two different networks. Before you connect a Linksys router to another router, make sure that both routers have different IP Addresses. This is necessary to avoid conflict & connectivity issues in the local network if they have similar IP Addresses.
• Token Ring to Internet- Token Ring Local Area Network (LAN) technology is a communications protocol for local area networks.

Modem: MODEM stands for MOdulator-DEModulator. A modem is a device or program that enables a computer to transmit data over, for example, telephone or cable lines. Computer information is stored digitally, whereas information transmitted over telephone lines is transmitted in the form of analog waves. A modem converts between these two forms (analog to digital & vice versa).

Name of Student: Harsh Tiwari
Faculty Name: Naresh  Sir
Roll No: JK-ENR-SW-1621
Date: 01-04-2018
Session Name: Networking Devices

Summary of learning: Understanding different types of networking devices & their uses

Transmission Media

Transmission Media

Ratings: 10+5=15

Networking Transmission Media:

Networking Transmission Media is the actual path over which an electrical signal goes as it moves starting with one part then onto the next.

There are 2 types of transmission media used in Networking

1. Wired (Cables)
2. Wireless (Air)

There are three types of wired transmission media,

1. Coaxial Cables
2. Twisted Pair Cables
3. Fiber Optic Cables

Coaxial Cables: A Coaxial Cable or Coax is a cable, is used in the transmission of audio, video & communications. Mainly Coaxial Cables are used as network & broadband cable. These cables have high bandwidths & greater transmission capacity. The adjacent figure is of a commonly used Coaxial Cable. These cables have a metal male connector end that is screwed onto a female connector.

The Coaxial Cables are of two types-

1. Thicker (10Base5)
2. Thinner (10Base2)

Thicknet, also known as Thick Ethernet or 10Base5.

Thinnet also known as Thin Ethernet or 10Base2, are antiquated Ethernet networking technologies.

Both technologies use Coax that consists of solid copper core surrounded by an insulator. 10Base2 is known as Cheaper Net, Thin Ethernet, Thinnet & Thinwire which is a variant of Ethernet that uses Thin Coaxial Cable, terminated with BNC connectors. Here, 10Base2 means,

• 10 MBps speed
• Baseband signals & 
• 200 meters length (actual usage is 185 metres).

And, 10Base5 is known as Thick Ethernet or Thicknet that was the first commercially available variant of Ethernet. Here, 10Base5 means

• 10 Mbps speed
• Baseband signals &
• 500 metre length.

Understanding the Thinnet & Thicknet concepts:

The number 10: At the front each identifier, 10 denotes the standard data transfer speed over these media - ten Megabits per second (Mbps).

The word Base: Short for Baseband, this part of the identifier signifies a type of network that uses only one carrier frequency for signalling & requires all network stations to share it's use.

The segment type or segment length: This part of the identifier can be a digit or a letter
Digit: shorthand for how long (in metres) a cable segment may be before attenuation sets in. For example, a 10Base5 segment can be no more than 500 metres long.
Letter: identifies a specific physical type of cable. For example, the T at the end of 10BaseT stands for twisted-pair.

Twisted Pair Cables: Twisted Pair Cable is a very important network media. It can be used for phone communications & cable Ethernet networks. Twisted Pair cabling is a type of during in which two conductors of a single circuit are twisted tohtoget for the purlpurp of cancelling out ElectroMagnetic InerfeInterf (EMI) from external sources. There are two kinds of twisted Pair cable, UTP & STP.

UTP: UTP means Unshielded Twisted Pair, which is the copper media & inherited from telephony, which can be used for increasingly higher data rates, & is rapidly becoming the de facto standard for horizontal wiring, the connection between, & including the outlet & the termination in the communication closet.

• The advantage of UTP is that they are very flexible, low cost media & can be used for either voice or data communications.
• And, the main disadvantage with UTP is the bandwidth. We cannot achieve high bandwidth with UTP cables.

STP: STP cable is Shielded Twisted Pair copper conductive netting or casing, performed with individually or with external conductive shield around all pairs. It is heavier & more difficult to manufacture, but it can extraordinarily enhance the signalling rate in a vivek transmission plot. Twisting give cancellation of magnetically induced fields & currents on a pair of conductors.

• The main advantage of STP is that it ensures greater protection from all types of external interference than UTP cable.
• And the disadvantage, it is more expensive than UTP cable.

Fiber Optic Cables: Fibre Optic Cable is a fast information transmission medium. Fiber Optic Cables carry communication signals using pulses of light generated by small lasers or light-emmiting diodes (LEDs).

It contains minor glass or plastic fibres, which carry light beams & the coating helps preserve the fibres from heat, cold, electromagnetic delay from distinct types of wiring, as readily as some protection from ultraviolet raha from the sun. Fibre Optic manages for an essentially master data transmission than standard copper wires. And the Fibre Optic Cables bandwidth is much higher than older cables.

Advantages of Fibre Optic Cables:

• Fibre cables offer several advantages over traditional long-distance copper cabling.
• Fibre optics have a higher capacity. The amount of network bandwidth a fibre cable can carry easily exceeds that of a copper cable with similar thickness. Fiber cables rated at 10 Gbps, 40 Gbps & even 100 Gbps are standard. Since light can travel much longer distances down a fibre cable without losing it's strength, it lessens the need for signal boosters.
• Fiber is less susceptible to interference. A traditional network cable requires special shielding (like in STP) to protect it from electromagnetic interference. While this shielding helps, it is not sufficient to prevent interference when many cables are strung together in close proximity to each other. The physical priorities of glass & fibre cables avoid most of these issues.

There are two types of Fibre Optic Cables they are:

1. Single mode Fiber Optic Cable.
   
2. Multi-mode Fiber Optic Cable.

Comparing Transmission Media:

Name of Student: Harsh Tiwari
Faculty Name: Naresh  Sir
Roll No: JK-ENR-SW-1621
Date: 01-04-2018
Session Name: Transmission Media

Summary of learning: Learning about different types of networking media