Networking Technologies: Types, Topologies, and Impact

This document provides an overview of networking technologies, including types and topologies of networking systems such as LAN, WAN, PAN, and MAN. It also discusses the impact of network technology on communication and standards. The document further explores the implementation of LAN in Beta Communication Ltd.

NETWORKING
TECHNOLOGIES

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Types and Topologies of Networking Systems..........................................................................3
1.2 Impact of network technology, communication and standards................................................13
1.3 Utilization of networking systems by protocols......................................................................14
TASK 2...............................................................................................................................................15
2.1 Roles of software and hardware components..........................................................................15
2.2 Different Server Types and selection requirements.................................................................15
2.3 Interdependence of workstation hardware...............................................................................16
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................17
................................................................................................................................17
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................18
Illustration Index
Illustration 1: Local Area Network.......................................................................................................4
Illustration 2: Wide Area Network.......................................................................................................6
Illustration 3: Personal Area Network..................................................................................................7
Illustration 4: MAN network................................................................................................................8
Illustration 5: Star Topology...............................................................................................................10
Illustration 6: Bus Topology...............................................................................................................11
Illustration 7: Ring Topology.............................................................................................................12
Illustration 8: Tree Topology..............................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
A network can be said as a group of computers sharing data and information with each other
using a data link. The computers on which sharing is being done are called nodes. Networking
Technologies are some mediums that helps in connecting with people lacking geographical
restrictions. These systems offer an easy way to share files. Also it proves beneficial for resource
sharing as devices like printers, modems, scanners can be shared over all the computers in the
network. These technologies gives flexible access to people as accessing files from systems
throughout the network is allowed. Some common types of network consists of LAN ( Local Area
Network), WAN ( Wireless LAN), PAN(Personal Area Network) etc. The Beta Communication Ltd
is a telecommunication company that deals in telecom products. This report is about designing and
implementing LAN in the Beta Communication Ltd.
TASK 1
1.1 Types and Topologies of Networking Systems
As a Network Consultant, it is important to have a deep knowledge of all the types of
network because any customer can request for a different network any time depending on his work
schedules and lifestyle.
Some common types of network are :
1. Local Area Network (LAN) – LAN connects various network computers over short
distances. This connection can establish in buildings, schools, hostels or any place where
devices can connect over short distance (Luehmann and Tinelli,2008). It can also be said as
a group of computers sharing a same communication line.
Benefits :
 We can send e-mails between different nodes.
 Centrally management of all the nodes attached is easy.
 Communication through a LAN network is cheaper than the other networks.
 The data is stored on the server computer which makes it more secure.
 The same internet connection is served among all the users connected to the LAN.
Limitations:
 Less chance to move in a different location.

 Server maintenance is expensive. The set up cost used in the implementation and then
maintenance of a LAN is quite expensive (Burgess, 2009).
 This connection only covers a limited area as it covers short distances.
 The LAN administrator has permissions to check the files on any computer connected to the
server any time and somewhere it violates users privacy (Luehmann and Tinelli,2008).
 A LAN administrator is always required as if sometime errors or any problems attack the
system, the administrator can solve it. His/her absence can lead to a huge loss of time which
can affect the company as well.
(Source :Antsaklis and Baillieul,2004 )
As we can see in the picture above, all the servers i.e. file server, mail server, any output device say
printer and all the nodes are connected over a single communication line.
Illustration 1: Local Area Network

2. Wide Area Network ( WAN) – A WAN is a network in which connected nodes may be far
apart i.e. within a radius of 1 Km. The biggest example of a WAN is Internet which is
covering the whole earth. It is a collection of various LANs connected together. The
connection between a LAN and a WAN is established by a router. A VPN i.e. Virtual private
network eases the connection between different WANs. These connections can be wired as
well as wireless. 4G which is in a huge demand nowadays, comes under wireless WAN
technology.
Benefits :
 Increase in bandwidth as in this network, leased lines are used instead of broadband which
gives high upload speed (Antsaklis and Baillieul,2004).
 IT infrastructure is centralised.
 It helps in sharing data within all the sites without sharing it over internet, which boosts a
user's privacy.
 ISDN i.e. Integrated Services Digital Network ,can be eliminated from WANs as they don't
need ISDN for calls etc.
Limitations :
 Security Issues are being faced sometimes in this type of network.
 Issues in maintenance
 Setup cost of a WAN is higher than other networks as WANs are quite complicated.
 Maintaining a WAN is also not easy, it causes issues sometimes which takes time to be
solved.

(Source : )
3. Personal Area Network (PAN) – A PAN connects different nodes within a person's personal
habitat, within a range of 10 metres. It has some advantages but some disadvantages too. It
is handy and safe but sometimes have a slow speed for data transfer. Explaining with an
example, If a person is travelling along with his tablet, a PDA( personal digital assistant)
and a printer that is portable, he can interconnect them without any plug-in and take the
output as well (Burgess, 2009). This makes PAN different from other networks.
Benefits :
 There are no security issues in this network because it is limited to a very small area.
 A PAN network is movable. It is easy to move this network from one place to another.
 It can be established either wirelessly or by cables (Luehmann and Tinelli,2008).
 Less technical skills required than the other networks because it is less complicated.
 Easy and simple to set up a PAN network.
Limitations :
 Instead its simple to implement a PAN network but it is costly to use.
Illustration 2: Wide Area Network

 It has a small Range of 10 metres only.
 Transmission speed is not so high in PAN. It is moderate.
 In this network, sometimes there are compatibility issues because WPAN techniques are
usually not compatible with each other.
(Source : Luehmann and Tinelli,2008)
4. Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) - MAN connects different users over network within a
geographical area i.e. larger than the area covered by a LAN . It is a network developed for a
city or town. A huge collection of LANs makes a WAN. Fibre optical cables are been used
in this type for high speed data.
Benefits :
 It provides a good bandwidth as fibre optical cables have been used in this network.
 Files or resources on this network can be accessed more fast than other networks.
 Dual Bus is being used in MAN which provides transfer of data from both sides at the same
Illustration 3: Personal Area Network

time.
 It acts as a high speed internet over the city.
 An example is High speed DSL by telephone companies.
Limitations:
 Security is less here as it is hard to protect the systems from hackers.
 It is a large network which sometimes become hard to manage.
 While connecting it from one place to another, more cable is required.
 It stops working when being shifted to other city or area.
 Equipment cost is quite more than the other networks.
(Source : Antsaklis and Baillieul,2004)
Networking Topologies – As a Network Consultant, we often have to deal with the topologies.
Network topologies helps in determining how different nodes on the network are connected to each
other. I am describing some as following :
1. Mesh Topology – It refers to the point to point connection over all the other nodes. Data is
transferred in this topology with the help of two techniques, Routing and Flooding. This
topology is mostly used for wireless networks.
Benefits :
Illustration 4: MAN network

 Connections are fully established.
 Strong
 High security
 Many devices transmits data at the same time, so it handles huge amount of data.
 Any error or problem in one device does not affect the other devices in the network. The
other systems work keep going on without any issue.
 Addition of new devices does not interrupts the transmission in previous ones.
Limitations:
 In starting, configuring is quite tough.
 Cable used is costly.
 Implementing and then maintenance of this topology is hard.
 High implementation cost makes it a less wise option.
 Wiring in bulk is requires which adds more cost to it.
2. Star Topology – This topology says that all the nodes are connected through a single hub which
acts as a central node of the system.
Benefits :
 Troubleshooting is easy.
 Setup is easy and it is very simple to connect new nodes as it does not affects the rest of the
systems.
 This topology is Fast (Burgess, 2009).
 Far much better than Bus topology because of its performance.
 Monitoring the network is easy because of its centralised management.
Limitations:
 Installation cost high.
 Quite expensive (Luehmann and Tinelli,2008).
 There is a centralised system. If it fails, the whole network and the devices have to suffer.
 As central device consists of a hub, switch and a router which makes it more costly.

 The central system manages the performance of new nodes.
(Source : Luehmann and Tinelli,2008)
3. Bus Topology : A Bus topology is a topology of network where all the nodes are directly
connected to a single bus which is actually a half duplex link.
Benefits :
 Set up of a Bus network is easy and it is also very easy to extend the network.
 It is a very less cost topology.
 This network is commonly being used in small networks.
 Cable required in this topology is less than required in other topologies which makes less
cable cost.
Limitations :
 The bus on which all the nodes are connected if encounter any errors, the whole network
will have to suffer.
 Terminator use is must for dumping signals.
 With time, its cost for maintenance can get higher.
 It is not compatible with high traffic networks.
Illustration 5: Star Topology

(Source : Burgess, 2009)
4. Ring Topology – In this topology, in a circular shape, all devices are connected to each other.
Both in LAN and WAN networks, this topology is used. Until the packet goes to its final
destination, it is moving around the ring.
Benefits:
 It is a very organised topology.
 Instead of a high load on the network, it performs better.
 No server is required to check the connectivity between different systems or nodes.
 If new nodes are being added, they do not affect the performance of other nodes.
 Resources are being accessed by each node equally.
Limitations :
 Like the bus topology, if any port gets down, the whole network gets affected.
 Every data packet must be passed through all the nodes over a network.
 This topology is very dependent on the wire connects different systems.
Illustration 6: Bus Topology

(Source :Sato and Hasegawa,2009)
5. Tree Topology – This topology constitutes properties of bus and star topologies. Connected
nodes are in the form of branches of a tree.
Benefits :
 This topology is an extended version of Bus and Star topologies, so this topology can be
implemented where Bus and Star topologies can't because of scalability.
 Expanding this topology is easy (Sato,2007).
 Detection and correction of errors is easy.
 Other nodes are not being affected from a single node damage in this topology.
Limitations :
 It depends majorly on the bus cable on which nodes are connected.
 Maintenance goes more difficult on addition of more nodes.
Illustration 7: Ring Topology

(Source: Sato,2007 )
1.2 Impact of network technology, communication and standards.
Below I am describing some technologies and their communication standards :
1. Ethernet – Most commonly used LAN is known as Ethernet. In family of standards, every
network device is given a standard. Ethernet is given IEEE802.3 standard . Initially it was
developed to run over coaxial cables but now it uses twisted pair cables. Ethernet is a cable
through which people get internet connections. This cable is special grade twisted pair cable
or may be fibre optical also (Luehmann and Tinelli,2008). Fibre optical cables provides a
high speed data upload and download to the users. As a Network Consultant, at the Beta
Communication Ltd, while establishing the LAN, I have to make sure to use twisted pair
cable or fibre optical Ethernet as it provides high speed internet.
2. Token Ring – It is a local area network where all nodes are connected in a star or ring
topology. The token that is holding some data can only send data. The token who has no data
received can't send any data. These rings helps in non colliding of data packets on a
network. It is being standardised as IEEE802.5 . These gets more costly than Ethernet at
similar speeds. Ethernets have replaced the use of token rings. At Beta Communication Ltd,
we also go for Ethernet because token rings goes quite costly than Ethernet.
3. FDDI ( Fiber Distributed Data Interface) – A set of ANSI and ISO standards is FDDI. In a
local area network, it is for transmission of data on fibre optics cables which helps the range
to extend upto 200 km. On the token ring protocol, FDDI protocol is established. It consists
of two token rings. The primary ring gives data and the secondary carries data if necessary.
Illustration 8: Tree Topology

This interconnects LANs using other protocols.
1.3 Utilization of networking systems by protocols.
As a Network Consultant, I would like to first describe the purpose of protocols which is described
as following.
A special set of standard or rules is called a Protocol for the systems to communicate with the
others. A very common example is TCP/IP where TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol
and IP stands for Internet Protocol. They are linked with each other but have different purpose. It is
a two layer program where TCP divides the file in smaller packets which is transferred over the
internet. After that TCP layer accepts it and then tacks it again together in the original message. IP,
the lower layer manages address of the packet's parts to reach it the right destination.
After that, information about Routed protocols is necessary as well while establishing LAN in Beta
Communication Ltd.
A routed protocol routes the data. Some common examples are IP, Apple Talk, IPX etc. Subnetting
and addressing scheme are required for this type of protocols. Addressing scheme helps in
identifying the network to which the host belongs. Subdivision of an IP network is called a subnet.
Explaining the routed protocols as under:
1. IPv4 – The fourth version of the Internet Protocol is internet Protocol version 4. In packet
switching in OSI model, this protocol is being used (Burgess, 2009). It is a connectionless
protocol. It has five classes and it uses 32 bit addresses in Ethernet for all five classes-
A,B,C,D and E. The subnet mask for class A is 255.255.255.0 or /8, for B- 255.255.0.0 or
/16, C- 255.255.255.0 or /24.
2. IPv6 – It is an upgraded version of IPv4. Although the concepts of IPv4 and IPv6 are almost
same but this improved version increases the IP address from 32 bits to 128 bits. It supports
both source and destination addresses.

TASK 2
2.1 Roles of software and hardware components
Software components are the components that assigns an application's functional behaviour.
The link between technology and applications is provided by the software. A software component
is a software package, a web service, a web resource or a module that encapsulates a set of related
functions or data. Defining some software components below:
1. Client Software : A part of computer software or hardware is a Client. The server has given
some services and a client accesses that services (Antsaklis and Baillieul,2004). Many times,
the server is placed on some other system. In that case the client accesses the information by
a network.
2. Server Software : On the server, it is a software which is to be used, operated and managed.
It is particularly made to interact with the infrastructure of a server's hardware which
includes memory, storage, input and output functions.
Some examples of Hardware components are as below:
1. Server : It is a program of computer which serves to the other programs of the computer. The
system in which the server programs runs is termed as a Server (Sato and Hasegawa,2009).
2. Switches : A switch is a networking device that connects the devices together taking use of packet
switching. A network switch is also called a hub- switching or bridging hub.It uses hardware
addresses to function.
3. Routers : A layer 3, network gateway device is called a router. Networks are connected by
the help of routers. It is often covered as a network switch (Luehmann and Tinelli,2008).
4. Cabling : It includes many types of cabling and every cable have different properties. AS
fibre optical have the highest speed uploads and downloads. They have very importance in
networking as every cable has its own benefits for networking of different types.
2.2 Different Server Types and selection requirements
As a Network Consultant, I am aware of all the different types of servers which are
discussed as below:
1. FTP Server – FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is one of the oldest servers. It
transfers files from server to different nodes and vice versa. Security of the data is ensured
with this server and it provides better integrity of data during the transfer of files. Web

Servers use it generally. Using FTP clients, different users can upload, modify or delete files
from websites.
2. Proxy Server – The proxy server is responsible for establishing a connection between a
client with an external server to filter requests, improve performance and share connections
(Antsaklis and Baillieul,2004).
3. Web server – The web server is responsible for hosting website files and serve it up through
a web browser. It loads an individual file of a web page and loads it to display in the browser
as one complete page. HTTP i.e. Hypertext transfer protocol communicate between server
and web browser to load a web page.
4. Application Servers – Middleware is a software that establishes a connection between two
separate applications that are apart. A number of middleware products can link a database
system to a web server (Burgess, 2009). It enables the users to request data from database by
the help of those forms that are displayed on a web browser and based on the users profit
and request, allowing the web server to return dynamic web pages.
2.3 Interdependence of workstation hardware
1. Network Interface Card : A Network Interface Card, also called a NIC is an
electronic device that connects a system to a network, usually by a LAN. It is
considered as a part of computer hardware. They let a computer exchange data with
the network. For achieving the connection, network cards use a suitable protocol that
is CSMA/CD. Network cards usually implement the first two layers of the OSI
model that is the physical layer and the data link layer. Most network cards use
Ethernet. Other types of network are ARCNET (Sato and Hasegawa,2009). There are
many network cards which are compatible to only respective software, depending on
the computer architecture we have to find a compatible network card. They are
needed to access the internet and local networks and thus they can function with
custom network types.
2. Networking Cables : There are many types of cables that are used in networking.
Different types of network cables are coaxial cable, optical fibre cable and twisted
pair cable. They are used according to the requirement of the connection and
network. Patch cables are used for short distances e.g. in offices etc. Connections
that are electrical are made using twisted pair or coaxial cable e.g. within a building
(Sato,2007). Optical fibre cable is used for long distances and they provide the
maximum high speed . Many centres use structured cabling to improve

trustworthiness and maintenance.
3. System Bus : It is a pathway that consists cables and connectors that are used to
carry data between a microprocessor and the main memory. A communication path
for the data is provided by the bus The system bus works by combining the
functions of the three main buses: namely, the data, address and control buses. Each
of the three buses has its separate characteristics and responsibilities.
CONCLUSION
Network Technologies provides many benefits to the users as there are different types of
networks for different purposes. There are LAN for local networks, WAN for wide networks, PAN
for personal networks etc. It is very comfortable for users that they can establish a connection a
connection according to their requirement. Various topologies as Bus topology, Tree topology, Ring
topologies etc. are there to be implement. Software components includes clients, server software
etc. and hardware components consists routers, switches, cables. In networking, there are many
cables which have different purposes. As fibre optical is known for high speed transmission. Like
that, every cable has its own different features which users can use according to their particular
requirements. In many systems, data is being stored on the server computer. In some systems, other
nodes are dependent on the server while as on some some are not dependent. These techniques and
topologies makes networking more efficient for the users to use.

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