Class XII- Informatics Practices

Introduction to Computer Network

A computer network is a collection of interconnected autonomous computing devices so as to
exchange information or share resources. It is a group of devices connected with each other through
a transmission medium such as wires, cables etc. These devices can be computers, printers,
scanners, Fax machines etc. The purpose of having computer network is to send and receive data
stored in other devices over the network.
A computer network is a group of computers that use a set of common communication
protocols over digital interconnections for the purpose of sharing resources located on or provided
by the network nodes. The interconnections between nodes are formed from a broad spectrum
of telecommunication network technologies, based on physically wired, optical, and wireless radio-
frequency methods that may be arranged in a variety of network topologies.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Computer Networking

Advantages of Network:

These are main advantages of Computer Networks:

1. Central Storage of Data –
Files can be stored on a central node (the file server) that can be shared and made available to
each and every user in an organization.
2. Anyone can connect to a computer network –
There is a negligible range of abilities required to connect to a modern computer network. The
effortlessness of joining makes it workable for even youthful kids to start exploiting the data.
3. Faster Problem solving –
Since an extensive procedure is disintegrated into a few littler procedures and each is taken
care of by all the associated gadgets, an explicit issue can be settled in lesser time.
4. Reliability –
Reliability implies backing up of information. Due to some reason equipment crash, and so on,
the information gets undermined or inaccessible on one PC, another duplicate of similar
information is accessible on another workstation for future use, which prompts smooth
working and further handling without interruption.
5. It is highly flexible –
This innovation is known to be truly adaptable, as it offers clients the chance to investigate
everything about fundamental things, for example, programming without influencing their
usefulness.
6. Security through Authorization –
Security and protection of information is additionally settled through system. As just the
system clients are approved to get to specific records or applications, no other individual can
crack the protection or security of information.
7. It boosts storage capacity –
 8. Since you will share data, records and assets to other individuals, you need to guarantee all
information and substance are legitimately put away in the framework. With this systems
administration innovation, you can do the majority of this with no issue, while having all the
space you requirement for capacity.
9. Share resources – such as printers and scanners. This is cheaper than buying equipment for
each computer.
10. Can share software - Software’s can be installed centrally rather than on each machine.
Metering software can then be used to limit the number of copies being run at one time.
11. Share storage – being able to access files from any machines on the network.
12. Improve communications – Messages can be sent via email etc.

Disadvantages of Network:

These are main disadvantages of Computer Networks:

1. It lacks robustness –
If a PC system’s principle server separates, the whole framework would end up futile. Also, if
it has a bridging device or a central linking server that fails, the entire network would also
come to a standstill. To manage these issues, gigantic systems ought to have a ground-breaking
PC to fill in as document server to influence setting to up and keeping up the system less
demanding.
2. It lacks independence –
PC organizing includes a procedure that is worked utilizing PCs, so individuals will depend a
greater amount of PC work, rather than applying an exertion for their jobs that needs to be
done. Beside this, they will be subject to the primary document server, which implies that, in
the event that it separates, the framework would end up futile, making clients inactive.
3. Virus and Malware –
File security is more important especially if connected to WAN’s. On the off chance that even
one PC on a system gets contaminated with an infection, there is a possibility for alternate
frameworks to get tainted as well. Infections can spread on a system effectively, in view of the
between availability of different gadgets.4. Lack of Independence
4. Cost of network –
The expense of executing the system including cabling and equipment can be expensive. The
systems are more sophisticated and complex to run, adding to the costs and one may need
specialist staff to run the network.
5. If the files and software’s are centrally held, then it may become impossible to carry out any
work if the central server fails.
6. Constant administration is required which requires time.
7. Some components of the network that has been designed may not work after some years and
that needs to be replaced.
8. Initially, when the setup is getting ready, the investment cost for hardware and software can
be costly.
9. Proper computer security precautions like firewalls and file encryption are required regularly,
as intruders can steal the data.
Components of Computer Network:

The major components are:

1. Hosts/ Nodes
2. Servers
3. Client
4. Network hardware
5. Communication channel
6. Software
7. Network Services

Servers – These are computers with a high configuration that can handle the resources in the
network. These are the machines that hold different kinds of programs or files that can be
accessed by another computer that is present in the network. Some of the servers are database
server, file server, print server, etc.

Clients – These are computers that request or get the information or service from the servers to
access the network resources.

Access points – This allows the computer to connect to the wireless network, ie. Without the
use of cables. This provides flexibility to mobile users.

Shared data – These are the data that is shared between the client like files, programs, and
email.

Network interface card – this controls the data flow between the computer and network. A
network interface card can send and receive data.

Transmission media – These are the mode through which data is transferred from one device
to another. Transmission media can be fibre optic cables, coaxial cables or infra-red waves,
microwaves, etc. There are three types of cables:

o Twisted pair cable: It is a high-speed cable that transmits the data over 1Gbps or more.
o Coaxial cable: Coaxial cable resembles like a TV installation cable. Coaxial cable is more
expensive than twisted pair cable, but it provides the high data transmission speed.
o Fibre optic cable: Fibre optic cable is a high-speed cable that transmits the data using light
beams. It provides high data transmission speed as compared to other cables. It is more
expensive as compared to other cables, so it is installed at the government level.

Router
Router is a device that connects the LAN to the internet. The router is mainly used to connect
the distinct networks or connect the internet to multiple computers.

Modem
Modem connects the computer to the internet over the existing telephone line. A modem is not
integrated with the computer motherboard. A modem is a separate part on the PC slot found
on the motherboard.
 Hub
Hub is a central device that splits the network connection into multiple devices. When computer
requests for information from a computer, it sends the request to the Hub. Hub distributes this
request to all the interconnected computers.

Switches
Switch is a networking device that groups all the devices over the network to transfer the data
to another device. A switch is better than Hub as it does not broadcast the message over the
network, i.e., it sends the message to the device for which it belongs to. Therefore, we can say
that switch sends the message directly from source to the destination.

Types of computer Network

A computer network is a group of computers linked to each other that enables the computer to
communicate with another computer and share their resources, data, and applications.
A computer network can be categorized by their size. A computer network is mainly of four types:

o LAN(Local Area Network)

o PAN(Personal Area Network)
o MAN(Metropolitan Area Network)
o WAN(Wide Area Network)

PAN (Personal Area Network)

o Personal Area Network is a network arranged within an individual person, typically within
a range of 10 meters.
o Personal Area Network is used for
connecting the computer devices of personal
use is known as Personal Area Network.
o Thomas Zimmerman was the first research
scientist to bring the idea of the Personal
Area Network.
o Personal Area Network covers an area of 30
feet.
o Personal computer devices that are used to
develop the personal area network are the laptop, mobile phones, media player and play
stations.

There are two types of Personal Area Network:

o Wired Personal Area Network
o Wireless Personal Area Network
Wireless Personal Area Network: Wireless Personal Area Network is developed by simply using
wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth. It is a low range network.
Wired Personal Area Network: Wired Personal Area Network is created by using the USB.
Examples of Personal Area Network:
o Body Area Network: Body Area Network is a network that moves with a person. For
example, a mobile network moves with a person. Suppose a person establishes a network
connection and then creates a connection with another device to share the information.
o Offline Network: An offline network can be created inside the home, so it is also known as
a home network. A home network is designed to integrate the devices such as printers,
computer, television but they are not connected to the internet.
o Small Home Office: It is used to connect a variety of devices to the internet and to a corporate
network using a VPN

LAN (Local Area Network)

o Local Area Network is a group of computers
connected to each other in a small area such as
building, office.
o LAN is used for connecting two or more
personal computers through a communication
medium such as twisted pair, coaxial cable,
etc.
o It is less costly as it is built with inexpensive
hardware such as hubs, network adapters, and
ethernet cables.
o The data is transferred at an extremely faster
rate in Local Area Network.
o Local Area Network provides higher security.

MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)

o A metropolitan area network is a network
that covers a larger geographic area by
interconnecting a different LAN to form a
larger network.
o Government agencies use MAN to connect
to the citizens and private industries.
o In MAN, various LANs are connected to
each other through a telephone exchange
line.
o The most widely used protocols in MAN
are RS-232, Frame Relay, ATM, ISDN, OC-3, ADSL, etc.
o It has a higher range than Local Area Network(LAN).

Uses of Metropolitan Area Network:

o MAN is used in communication between the banks in a city.
o It can be used in an Airline Reservation.
o It can be used in a college within a city.
o It can also be used for communication in the military.
WAN (Wide Area Network)
o A Wide Area Network is a network that
extends over a large geographical area such
as states or countries.
o A Wide Area Network is quite bigger
network than the LAN.
o A Wide Area Network is not limited to a
single location, but it spans over a large
geographical area through a telephone line,
fibre optic cable or satellite links.
o The internet is one of the biggest WAN in
the world.
o A Wide Area Network is widely used in the
field of Business, government, and
education.

Examples of Wide Area Network:

o Mobile Broadband: A 4G network is widely used across a region or country.
o Last mile: A telecom company is used to provide the internet services to the customers in
hundreds of cities by connecting their home with fiber.
o Private network: A bank provides a private network that connects the 44 offices. This
network is made by using the telephone leased line provided by the telecom company.

Advantages of Wide Area Network:

Following are the advantages of the Wide Area Network:
o Geographical area: A Wide Area Network provides a large geographical area. Suppose if the
branch of our office is in a different city then we can connect with them through WAN. The
internet provides a leased line through which we can connect with another branch.
o Centralized data: In case of WAN network, data is centralized. Therefore, we do not need to
buy the emails, files or back up servers.
o Get updated files: Software companies work on the live server. Therefore, the programmers
get the updated files within seconds.
o Exchange messages: In a WAN network, messages are transmitted fast. The web application
like Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype allows you to communicate with friends.
o Sharing of software and resources: In WAN network, we can share the software and other
resources like a hard drive, RAM.
o Global business: We can do the business over the internet globally.
o High bandwidth: If we use the leased lines for our company then this gives the high
bandwidth. The high bandwidth increases the data transfer rate which in turn increases the
productivity of our company.
Disadvantages of Wide Area Network:
The following are the disadvantages of the Wide Area Network:
o Security issue: A WAN network has more security issues as compared to LAN and MAN
network as all the technologies are combined together that creates the security problem.
o Needs Firewall & antivirus software: The data is transferred on the internet which can be
changed or hacked by the hackers, so the firewall needs to be used. Some people can inject
the virus in our system so antivirus is needed to protect from such a virus.
o High Setup cost: An installation cost of the WAN network is high as it involves the
purchasing of routers, switches.
o Troubleshooting problems: It covers a large area so fixing the problem is difficult.

Network Topologies

Network Topology
Computers in a network have to be connected in some logical manner. The layout pattern of the
interconnections between computers in a network is called network topology. You can think of
topology as the virtual shape or structure of the network. Network topology is also referred to as
'network architecture.'
Devices on the network are referred to as 'nodes.' The most common nodes are computers and
peripheral devices. Network topology is illustrated by showing these nodes and their connections
using cables. There are a number of different types of network topologies, including point-to-point,
bus, star, ring, mesh, tree and hybrid.

Let's review these main types.

Point-to-Point
Point-to-point topology is the simplest of all the network topologies. The network consists of a direct
link between two computers. This is faster and more reliable than other types of connections since
there is a direct connection. The disadvantage is that it can only be used for small areas where
computers are in close proximity.

Bus
Bus topology uses one main cable to which all nodes are directly connected. The main cable acts as
a backbone for the network. One of the computers in the network typically acts as the computer
server. The first advantage of bus topology is that it is easy to connect a computer or peripheral
device. The second advantage is that the cable requirements are relatively small, resulting in lower
cost.
One of the disadvantages is that if the main cable breaks, the entire network goes down. This type
of network is also difficult to troubleshoot. For these reasons, this type of topology is not used for
large networks, such as those covering an entire building.

Advantages of linear bus topology are:

 The linear bus topology usually requires less cabling.
 The linear bus topology is relatively simple to configure and install.
 In the linear bus topology, the failure of one computer does not affect the other computers in
the network.
The following are the disadvantages of linear bus topology:
 In the linear bus topology, the failure of the backbone cable results in the breakdown of entire
network.
 Addition of computers in the linear bus topology results in the performance degradation of
the network.
 The bus topology is difficult to reconstruct in case of faults.

Star
In star topology, each computer is connected to a central hub using a point-to-point connection. The
central hub can be a computer server that manages the network, or it can be a much simpler device
that only makes the connections between computers over the network possible.
Star topology is very popular because the startup costs are low. It is also easy to add new nodes to
the network. The network is robust in the sense that if one connection between a computer and the
hub fails, the other connections remain intact. If the central hub fails, however, the entire network
goes down. It also requires more cable than bus topology and is, therefore, more expensive.

Advantages of star topology are:

 This topology allows easy error detection and correction.
 In the star topology, the failure of one computer does not affect the other computers in the
network.
 Star topology is easy to install.
The following are the disadvantages of star topology:
 In the star topology, the hub failure leads to the overall network crash.
  The star topology requires more amount of cable for connecting the nodes.
 It is expensive due to the cost of the hub.

Ring
In ring topology, the computers in the network are connected in a circular fashion, and the data
travels in one direction. Each computer is directly connected to the next computer, forming a single
pathway for signals through the network. This type of network is easy to install and manage.
If there's a problem in the network, it is easy to pinpoint which connection is defective. It is also
good for handling high-volume traffic over long distances since every computer can act as a booster
of the signal. On the downside, adding computers to this type of network is more cumbersome, and
if one single computer fails, the entire network goes down.

Advantages of ring topology are:

 Each node has an equal access to other nodes in the network.
 Addition of new nodes does not degrade the performance of the network.
 Ring topology is easy to configure and install.
The following are the disadvantages of ring topology:
 It is relatively expensive to construct the ring topology.
 The failure of one node in the ring topology affects the other nodes in the ring.

Tree
A tree topology is a combination of a star network topology and a bus topology. In tree topology,
nodes of the underlying bus network topology are replaced with a complete star topology.
There are certain special cases where tree topology is more effective:
 Communication between two networks
 A network structure which requires a root node, intermediate parents node, and leaf
nodes (just like we see in an n-tree) or a network structure which exhibits three level of
hierarchy because two level of hierarchy is already displayed in the star topology.

Advantages of tree topology:

 Scalable as leaf nodes can accommodate more nodes in the hierarchical chain.
 A point to point wiring to the central hub at each intermediate node of a tree topology
represents a node in the bus topology
 Other hierarchical networks are not affected if one of them gets damaged
 Easier maintenance and fault finding
Disadvantages of tree topology:
 Huge cabling is needed
 A lot of maintenance is needed
 Backbone forms the point of failure.

Mesh
In mesh topology, every node has a direct point-to-point connection to every other node. Because
all connections are direct, the network can handle very high-volume traffic. It is also robust because
if one connection fails, the others remain intact. Security is also high since data travels along a
dedicated connection.
In mesh topology, each computer is connected to every other computer in point-to-point mode as
shown in figure 5. For example, if we have four computers, we must have six links. If we have n
computers, we must have n(n-1)/2 links.

Advantages of mesh topology are:

 Message delivery is more reliable.
 Network congestion is minimum due to large number of links.
The following are the disadvantages:
 It is very expensive to implement.
 It is very difficult to configure and install.

Hybrid Topology
The hybrid topology is the combination of multiple topologies, used for constructing a single large
topology. The hybrid topology is created when two different network topologies are interconnected.
If two ring topologies are connected then the resultant topology is not the hybrid topology. On the
other hand, if the ring topology is connected to the bus topology then the resulting topology is called
the hybrid topology. This topology generally combines the features of the two topologies and is
therefore more effective and efficient than the individual topologies.

Advantages of hybrid topology are:

 The hybrid topology is more effective as it uses multiple topologies.
 The hybrid topology contains the best and efficient features of the combined topologies from
which it is constructed.
The following are the disadvantages of hybrid topology:
 The hybrid topology is relatively more complex than the other topologies.
 The hybrid topology is difficult to install and configure.

Fully connected topology

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A complete (fully connected) topology is a network topology in which there is a direct link between
all pairs of nodes. In a fully connected network with n nodes, there are n(n-1)/2 direct links.

NETWORK DEVICES
Types of network devices
 Hub.
 Switch.
 Router.
 Bridge.
 Gateway.
 Modem.
 Repeater.
MODEM-

Modem is abbreviation for Modulator – De-modulator. Modems are used for data transfer from
one computer network to another computer network through telephone lines. The computer
network works in digital mode, while analog technology is used for carrying massages across
phone lines.
Modulator converts information from digital mode to analog mode at the transmitting end and de-
modulator converts the same from analog to digital at receiving end. The process of
converting analog signals of one computer network into digital signals of another computer
network so they can be processed by a receiving computer is referred to as digitizing.

Repeater –
A repeater operates at the physical layer. Its job is to regenerate the signal over the same network
before the signal becomes too weak or corrupted so as to extend the length to which the signal can
be transmitted over the same network. An important point to be noted about repeaters is that they
do not amplify the signal. When the signal becomes weak, they copy the signal bit by bit and
regenerate it at the original strength. It is a 2 port device.

Hub –
A hub is basically a multiport repeater. A hub connects multiple wires coming from different
branches, for example, the connector in star topology which connects different stations. Hubs cannot
filter data, so data packets are sent to all connected devices. In other words, collision domain of all
hosts connected through Hub remains one. Also, they do not have intelligence to find out best path
for data packets which leads to inefficiencies and wastage.

Types of Hub
 Active Hub:- These are the hubs which have their own power supply and can clean, boost and
relay the signal along with the network. It serves both as a repeater as well as wiring centre.
These are used to extend the maximum distance between nodes.
 Passive Hub:- These are the hubs which collect wiring from nodes and power supply from
active hub. These hubs relay signals onto the network without cleaning and boosting them and
can’t be used to extend the distance between nodes.
 Intelligent Hub:- It work like active hubs and include remote management capabilities. They
also provide flexible data rates to network devices. It also enables an administrator to monitor
the traffic passing through the hub and to configure each port in the hub.

Bridge –
A bridge operates at data link layer. A bridge is a repeater, with add on the functionality of filtering
content by reading the MAC addresses of source and destination. It is also used for interconnecting
two LANs working on the same protocol. It has a single input and single output port, thus making
it a 2 port device.
Types of Bridges
 Transparent Bridges:- These are the bridge in which the stations are completely unaware of
the
bridge’s existence i.e. whether or not a bridge is added or deleted from the network,
reconfiguration of
the stations is unnecessary. These bridges make use of two processes i.e. bridge forwarding
and bridge learning.
 Source Routing Bridges:- In these bridges, routing operation is performed by source station
and the frame specifies which route to follow. The hot can discover frame by sending a special
frame called discovery frame, which spreads through the entire network using all possible
paths to destination.

Switch –
A switch is a multiport bridge with a buffer and a design that can boost its efficiency (a large number
of ports imply less traffic) and performance. A switch is a data link layer device. The switch can
perform error checking before forwarding data that makes it very efficient as it does not forward
packets that have errors and forward good packets selectively to correct port only. In other words,
switch divides collision domain of hosts, but broadcast domain remains same.

Routers –
A router is a device like a switch that routes data packets based on their IP addresses. Router is
mainly a Network Layer device. Routers normally connect LANs and WANs together and have a
dynamically updating routing table based on which they make decisions on routing the data
packets. Router divide broadcast domains of hosts connected through it.