What is a Network?

• A network is a connection between terminals,

computers, servers, and components which allows
for the easy flow of data and use of resources
between one another.

• Different networks that we come across in our day

to day life are telephone network, cable TV
network, transport network of a city etc.
 Computer networking

• Computer networking means sharing of data

and resources between two or more computers with
a communication between them through a medium.

• The communication medium can be through radio

waves, wires (Ethernet cable), leased lines, infrared,
optical fibers etc.
 Computer Network

Stand-alone Elementary Form of

environment Computer
Networking
Computer Network
 Networking Application Areas

• Sharing information (or data)

• Sharing resources
(hardware and software)

• Centralizing administration and support

Sharing Hardware Resources
 Centralizing Administration & Support

• Electronic-mail (e-mail)

• Preserving Information

• Protecting Information

• Administrator can centrally install and configure the

software and also restrict access to the software
Fundamental Elements of Data Communication
 Types of Network

Classification According to the Size

• LAN ( Local Area Network )

• MAN ( Metropolitan Area Network )
• WAN ( Wide Area Network )
 LAN
(Local Area Network)
• By definition, a local area network (LAN) is
limited to a specific area, usually an office, and
cannot extend beyond the boundaries of a single
building.

• A workgroup is a collection of individuals (a

sales department, for example) who share the
same files and databases over the LAN.
 LAN
(Local Area Network)
 MAN
(Metropolitan Area Network)

• Combination of two or more LANs to form

a single network is called as MAN

• This network can extend across one

complete city making its area range of 60
km to 100 km (single city only)
 MAN
(Metropolitan Area Network)

MAN
 WAN

( Wide Area Network )

• A Network connecting multiple networks

(MAN s) in multiple Cities is called as
Wide Area Network ( WAN )

• Example:- INTERNET
 Internet & Intranet

• Internet :- It is a public network to which

any one can get connected at any time by
the using the World Wide Web (WWW)

• Intranet :- It is a private network of an

organization, or a department which is
completely isolated from any other type of
public network (Internet
 Concept of Internet
The Internet is “the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the
Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide.” It has changed the way we do
our daily chores. The usual tasks that we perform like sending an email, looking up train
schedules, social networking, paying a utility bill is possible due to the Internet. The
strucure of internat has become quite complex and it cannot be reperented as it is changing
instanteniously. Every now and then some resources are being added while some are being
romvwd. Internet comprises of various networks that include public, private, government,
business, and academic sectors linked together using different electronic technologies.It
interconnects global networks with local and vise-versa. The resources of Internet range in
both information(including digital documents like image, video, text etc.) and services
(including informatio sharing, email, video conferencing) domains.

Though the terms Internet and World Wide Web are used interchangeably in lay man terms
they are not the same. It is common practice to say "going on the Internet" whenever we
open any web page on a browser. However, the World Wide Web or the Web is one of the
most popular Internet services available. The Web is a collection of interconnected
documents (web pages)
and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. It uses HTTP as an
underlying protocol for information transfer which is one of the several other protocols
available in networking theory.

1.0 Evolution of Internet

The Defence Department of US, in 1969, funded a research project for developing a
robust network that should be resilient to even bombing. The main objective was to develop
a network that should be secure and robust enough to withstand even a nuclear attack. This
project was named as the ARPANET. The idea was to have a distributed network in order
to avoid attacks on the central authority. This led to the development of Local Area
Network (Local Area Network) and workstations equipped with the ability to connect to the
Ethernet. These local area networks were eventually connected to the ARPANET. The
distributed aspect of the ARPANET catalysed the rapid evolution of the ARPANET over
the next decade. Initially, ARPANET used National Control Protocol (NCP) as the standard
set of rules defining the communication between the computers connected to ARPANET.
However, owing to the rapid development of the information technology, NCP was
replaced by the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). The TCP
protocol fragments the messages into packet streams at the source and performs reassembly
of these packets at the destination. The transmission of these packets from source to
destination is handled by the IP. The IP protocol takes care of the addressing conventions
and ensures the delivery of the packet at the destination across multiple nodes or even
multiple networks. The agile nature of the TCP/IP protocol in handling the communication
 across multiple heterogeneous networks attracted the other networks to connect to the
ARPANET and employ TCP/IP as their underlying communication protocol. Eventually,
the ARPANET developed into a large network of networks and is now called as ‘Internet’.

1.0.1 What is the Internet?

The Internet is a global collection of computer networks that are linked together by devices
called routers and use a common set of protocols for data transmission known as TCP/IP
(transmission control protocol / Internet protocol). The primary purpose of the Internet is
to facilitate the sharing of information. There are many different tools used on the Internet
to make this possible. Some of the more common tools include email, list servers,
newsgroups, telnet, gopher, FTP, and the World Wide Web. Probably the most popular of
all Internet tools is the World Wide Web.

1.0.2 What is the World Wide Web (WWW)?

WWW stands for World Wide Web. A technical definition of the World Wide Web is −
All the resources and users on the Internet that are using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol
HTTP. The World Wide Web is the universe of network-accessible information, an
embodiment of human knowledge. The World Wide Web is a way of exchanging
information between computers on the Internet, tying them together into a vast collection
of interactive multimedia resources. It is a hypertext interface to internet information
resources.
Internet and Web is not the same thing: Web uses internet to pass over the information.
1.0.3 Basic WWW Concepts

The World Wide Web is a way of exchanging information between computers on the
Internet, tying them together into a vast collection of interactive multimedia resources. It is
a hypertext interface to internet information resources.

1.0.3.1 HTTP

HTTP is the short form for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. An example of the standard URL
is http://www.google.com. The prefix http in the URL designates the protocol being used
for communication. The HTTP protocol is used to access hypertext documents on the
World Wide Web.

1.0.3.2 URL

URL refers to Uniform Resource Locator. URLs are used as the address of the documents
available on the World Wide Web. A URL is the fundamental identifier of any resource
 available on the web e. g., hypertext pages, images, and sound files. The standard format of
a URL has been specified as –
protocol://hostname/other_information

A protocol is, basically, a specification of the flow of information in a network. The

protocol required for accessing the resources available on the web is called Hyper Text
Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Other protocols supported by the web browsers include telnet,
FTP, Gopher, etc. The name of the protocol is followed by a colon, two forward slashes,
and then the hostname. The hostname refers to the computer having the requested resource.
Hostname is followed by a single forward slash and links to subdirectories or any
particular file. The path to the directory holding the requested file or resource may contain
single forward slashes.

1.0.3.3 Website

Website refers to a collection of web pages usually written in markup language. For
example: www.google.com refers to the website of Google having ‘com’ as the domain
name. Websites can be understood as a location on the World Wide Web that holds the
resources which people can request when required. The first or the initial page of any
website is known as the home page of that particular website.

1.0.3.4 Web Server

Websites are usually hosted on a computer which is known as a Web server. These servers
should require constant connectivity with the internet so that the resources stored by them
can be accessed from anywhere in the world. A web server is provided with a unique
address which is required to access the contents of the server. The unique address is the
identifier for the server and is termed as IP Address. These IP Addresses comprise of a
series of four numbers separated by dots or periods. Each number lies between the range
of 0 – 255, for example: 192.168.1.1. IP
address of the web server is also required when the URL of the website hosted on that
server is registered on the World Wide Web.

1.0.3.5 Web Browser

Web Browser is a software required to access the resources available on the World Wide
Web. Hence, in order to access any website web browser is required. Examples of web
browsers are: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape
Navigator, etc. Navigating through the pages of a website is termed as web browsing or
surfing.

1.0.3.6 ISP

ISP is the short form for Internet Service Provider. They are basically the organizations
 responsible for providing internet connections to the subscribers. Several ISPs also provide
space on their web servers for hosting website of the subscribers.

1.0.3.7 HTML

HTML refers to Hyper Text Markup Language. It is the development language of the
websites available on the web. HTML can be understood as a subset of SGML (Standard
Generalized Mark-Up Language).

1.0.3.8 Hyperlink

Hyperlinks can be understood as the access points to other resources of the same or
different websites. A hyperlink, sometimes referred to as a link, is a clickable element in
an electronic document used to navigate through the linked resources. Typically, you click
the hyperlink to access the linked resource. Hyperlinks can be in the form of clickable
textual links, icons, buttons, etc.

1.0.3.9 DNS

DNS is the short form for Domain Name System. It is used to provide a mapping between
the name of the requested website and its IP address. Usually, user remembers the name or
URL of a website. When user enters this URL in the web browser, a request is sent to DNS
for resolving the entered URL in terms of its IP address. It is the IP address which will be
used to locate the requested resource on the web. The mapping of the URL and the IP
address a website is usually built during the registration of the domain name.

1.0.3.10 CLIENTS AND SERVERS

A host machine that requests for a resource on the Internet is treated as client. The
machine and/or software that manages and replies these requests are called as servers.
There are different types of clients like email client, web client, FTP client the
corresponding servers are Email server, web server and FTP server.
1.1 Internet Domains
Machines on the internet are uniquely identified using their corresponding IP addresses.
Similarly, the names assigned to the computers must be unique to avoid ambiguity. A
Namespace refers to the mapping between the names of the machine and their
corresponding IP address. Namespaces can be organized in two ways:
Flat Name Space: This indicates the direct mapping of the IP address to the complete name
of the machine. Names are simply a series of characters having no specific structure.
Hierarchical Name Space: In this name space, every name is composed of several parts.
The first component may refer to the nature of organization, second may indicate name of
organization, third may denote the department in the organization, and henceforth.
Hierarchical name space requires domain name space which is an inverted tree structure
with each level corresponding to a component of the name space. The complete tree shall
have only 128 levels, where level 0 refers to the root. Figure 1.2 shows the structure of
DNS.

Figure 1.2: Domain Name Space

A domain refers to a sub tree of the domain name space, as shown in Figure 1.3. The
domain name of the root of the sub tree will be the name of the domain. A domain can be
further subdivided into subdomains.
 Figure 1.3: Domains
In the context of the Internet, the domain name space (tree) can be classified as:
i. Generic domains
ii. Country domains
iii. Inverse domains
Generic Domains: Generic domains identify the registered hosts as per their general
capabilities. Each node of a such a tree refers to a domain which serves as the index for the
domain name space database. Figure 1.4 shows structure of Generic Domains

Figure 1.4: Generic Domains

 Country Domains: Country Domains employ abbreviations of the country. The
abbreviations are limited to two characters, e.g. In for India. Further labels may refer to the
specific organization or other national designations. Consider the following country
domain: anza.cup.ca.us. This refers to De Anza College in Cupertino, California, United
States.