Computer Network Definition.
Nowadays Communication is very important to us as our reliance on air, water, food, and shelter. In today’s world, through the use of networks, we are connected like never before.
A network is simply defined as something that connects things together for a communication purpose. The term network is used in a variety of contexts, including telephone, television, computer, or even people networks.
A computer network connects two or more devices together to share the resources or information between the computers.
Why should we use the network?
In today’s technology-oriented world, sharing has become an integral part of businesses and other activities. Without computer networks, device sharing is not possible. By building a network you can share your resources with each other including hardware, software, storage, etc. Here I have listed below a few major usages.
- Information Sharing: we use networks for applications like sending e-mail or to access certain websites.
- File sharing: we need a network so that users can reach a centralized network storage drive between the computers so that everybody can access the documents, pictures and/or other files from that centralized drive .
- Resource sharing: we can connect a single printer to the network and that can be used by all users in the network. No need to connect a printer directly to each computer.
Characteristics of Networks
When you are building a network the most important thing you need to think about is the network performance, reliability, Network security, and speed of the network.
Network Performance.
Network Performance can be measured in many ways, including transmit time and response time. Transit time is the amount of time required for a message to travel from one device to another. Response time is the elapsed time between an inquiry and a response.
The performance of a network depends on a number of factors, including the number of users, the type of transmission medium like Wire or Wireless and the capabilities of the connected hardware such as packet processing, Buffer size, etc, and the efficiency of the software.
Network Reliability
In addition to the accuracy of delivery, network reliability is measured by the frequency of failure, the time it takes a link to recover from a failure, and the network’s robustness in a catastrophe.
Network Security
Network security issues include protecting data from unauthorized access, protecting data from damage and development, and implementing policies and procedures for recovery from breaches and data losses.
Network Speed.
Network speed is very important because when you are communicating over the network, make sure you have enough bandwidth available on the link otherwise the network will be congested and it will create your network very slow.
Network Availability: Availability is a measure of the probability that the network will be available for use when it is required.