Network Types and Characteristics

What are network types and characteristics

• Defining the physical boundaries of various types of networks and understanding how devices are interconnected.

Client-Server model

• This type of model allows clients (end devices) such as computer to request and access resources on a server.

• The client is a device which request resources and services.

• A server is a device which provides resources and services.

Peer-to-peer model

• This model allows each client to connect and share resources with other clients on the network without the need of a dedicated server.

• If a client is connected to a printer and wants to share the resource (printer) to other hosts on the network, the host with the printer can become a server while the other hosts are clients who are accessing the resource.

• In this model, there is no centralized management of the resources and therefore it's not scalable for large network.

• This model works well on very small networks.

Personal Area Network (PAN)

• A PAN is a small network, usually created using a personal device as a smartphone to share resources to other devices within a short distance.

Local Area Network (LAN)

• The LAN is a small network within a single geographic location such as within a building.

• This network allows all devices within a building to be interconnected and share resources.

Wireless LAN (WLAN)

• A WLAN is a wireless local area network which has Access Points (APs) to allow wireless clients to connect and share resources.

• Access Points are connected to a network switch which provides wireless connectivity to wireless clients.

Wide Area Network (WAN)

• A WAN allows you to extend a LAN over a large geographic distance.

• An organization may have all their servers located at their main office and wants to share access to employees who are working at a remote office, using a WAN allows the organizations to extend their LAN at their main office over a large geographic distance to the remote office.

Campus Area Network (CAN)

• This is usually a very large LAN which is managed and maintain by a University or academic institution.

Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)

• This network is usually spread across a network, interconnecting many branches of the same organization.

• A organization may have multiple branches or offices within a single city, using a MAN allows each office within the same city to be interconnected.

• This network type is limited to a single city and the organization.

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) 

• This type of networking technology is found within the Internet Service Provider (ISP) network.

• ISPs allows their customer to send tagged traffic into their network, which are then routed to the destination using very high speed.

• MPLS supports various traffic types from the customer side.

Storage Area Network (SAN) 

• This is a dedicated network within an organizations which has file storage devices/servers.

• Within a SAN, there are very high speed technologies such as fiber optic and redundancy to support data transfers.