Today when we speak of networks we are generally referring
to three primary categories, local area networks, metropolitan area networks,
and wide area networks. Into which category a network falls is determined by
its size, its ownership, the distance it covers, and its physical architecture.
Local Area Network
(LAN): A Local Area Network (LAN) is usually privately owned and pinks the
devices in a single office, building, or campus. Depending on the needs of an
organization and the type of technology used, a LAN can be as simple as two
PC's and a printer in someone's home office; or it can be extend throughout a
company and include audio and video peripherals. Currently LAN size is limited
to few kilometers.
LAN's are designed to allow resources to be shared between
personal computers or workstations. The resources to be shared can include
hardware, software, or data. A common example of a LAN, found in many business environments,
links a workgroup of task related computers, for example, engineering
workstations or accounting PC. In addition to size, LAN's are distinguished
from other types of networks by their transmission media and topology .The most
common LAN topologies are bus, ring, and star.
Metropolitan-Area
Network (MAN) : A metropolitan-area network (MAN) is designed
to extend over an entire city. It may be a single network such as a cable television
network, or it may be a means of connecting a number of LAN's into larger
networks resources may be a means of connecting a number of LAN's into a larger
networks so that resources may be shared by LAN- to - LAN as well as device to device.
A MAN may be wholly owned and operated by a private company, or it may be a
service provided by a public company, such as a local telephone company. Many
telephone companies provide a popular MAN service called Switched Multi-megabit
Data Services (SMDS)
Wide Area Network
(WAN): A wide area network (WAN) provides long-distance transmission of
data, voice, images, and video information over large geographic areas that may
comprise a country, a continent, or even the whole world. In contrast to LANs, WANs
may utilize public, leased, or private communication equipment, usually in
combinations, and can therefore span an unlimited number of miles. A WAN that
is wholly owned and used by a single company is often referred to as an enterprise
network.
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