Computer Networks: in This
Computer Networks: in This
C
10 Computer Networks
— Stewart Kirkpatrick
In this Chapter
»» Introduction to Computer
Networks
»» Evolution of Networking 10.1 Introduction to Computer Networks
»» Types of Networks
We are living in a connected world. Information
»» Network Devices is being produced, exchanged, and traced across
»» Networking Topologies the globe in real time. It's possible as almost
»» Identifying Nodes everyone and everything in the digital world is
in a Networked interconnected through one way or the other.
Communication
»» Internet, Web and the
Internet of Things
»» Domain Name System
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Activity 10.1 A group of two or more similar things or people
Identify some other interconnected with each other is called network (Figure
networks in the 10.1). Some of the examples of network in our everyday
real world. life includes:
• Social network
• Mobile network
• Network of computers
• Airlines, railway, banks, hospitals networks
A computer network (Figure 10.2) is an interconnection
among two or more computers or computing devices.
Such interconnection allows computers to share data
and resources among each other. A basic network may
connect a few computers placed in a room.
The network size may vary from small to large
depending on the number of computers it connects.
A computer network can include different types of
hosts (also called nodes) like server, desktop, laptop,
cellular phones.
Networking
Device
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Interconnectivity of computing devices in a network Activity 10.2
allows us to exchange information simultaneously with Create a hotspot using
many parties through email, websites, audio/video a smartphone and
calls, etc. Network allows sharing of resources. For connect other
example, a printer can be made available to multiple devices to it.
computers through a network; a networked storage
can be accessed by multiple computers. People often
connect their devices through hotspot, thus forming a
small personal network.
1969 1983
1990
1974 Domain Name System
ARPANET became introduced
functional by
connecting UCLA and
SRI
The term Internet was The Berners-Lee at
coined, CERN developed HTML
and URL, thus giving
First commercial use of birth to World Wide Web
ARPANET, was started (www)
in the name of Telenet
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Notes 10.3 Types of Networks
There are various types of computer networks ranging
from network of handheld devices (like mobile phones
or tablets) connected through Wi-Fi or Bluetooth within
a single room to the millions of computers spread across
the globe. Some are connected wireless while others are
connected through wires.
Based on the geographical area covered and data
transfer rate, computer networks are broadly categorised
as:
• PAN ( Personal Area Network)
• LAN (Local Area Network)
• MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)
• WAN (Wide Area Network)
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10.3.2 Local Area Network (LAN)
It is a network that connects computers, mobile phones, Explore and find out
tablet, mouse, printer, etc., placed at a limited distance. the minimum internet
The geographical area covered by a LAN can range from speed required to
a single room, a floor, an office having one or more make a video call.
buildings in the same premise, laboratory, a school,
college, or university campus. The connectivity is done
by means of wires, Ethernet cables, fibre optics, or Wi-Fi.
A Local Area Network (LAN) is shown in Figure 10.5.
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but it is considerably less as compared to LAN. Cable TV
network or cable based broadband internet services are
examples of MAN. This kind of network can be extended
up to 30-40 km. Sometimes, many LANs are connected
together to form MAN, as shown in Figure 10.6.
LAN 1
Networking LAN 3
Device
LAN 2
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Network User Network User
Network User Network User
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Analog Signal
Modulation Demodulation
Digital Signal Demodulation Modulation Digital Signal
Telephone Line
Modem Modem
10.4.3 RJ45
RJ 45 or Registered Jack-45 is an
eight-pin connector (Figure 10.10)
that is used exclusively with
Ethernet cables for networking.
It is a standard networking
interface that can be seen at
the end of all network cables.
Basically, it is a small plastic plug
that fits into RJ-45 jacks of the
Ethernet cards present in various
Figure 10.10: RJ 45
computing devices.
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10.4.4 Repeater
Data are carried in the form of signals over the cable.
These signals can travel a specified distance (usually
about 100 m). Signals lose their strength beyond this
limit and become weak. In such conditions, original An Internet service
signals need to be regenerated. provider (ISP) is any
organisation that
A repeater is an analog device that works with signals
provides services
on the cables to which it is connected. The weakened for accessing the
signal appearing on the cable is regenerated and put Internet.
back on the cable by a repeater.
10.4.5 Hub
An Ethernet hub (Figure 10.11) is a network device used
to connect different devices through wires. Data arriving
on any of the lines are sent out on all the others. The
limitation of Hub is that if data from two devices come
at the same time, they will collide.
Activity 10.3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Find and list a
few ISPs in your
region.
10.4.5 Switch
A switch is a networking device (Figure 10.12) that
plays a central role in a Local Area Network (LAN). Like
a hub, a network switch is used to connect multiple
computers or communicating devices. When data
arrives, the switch extracts the
destination address from the data
packet and looks it up in a table to
see where to send the packet. Thus,
it sends signals to only selected
devices instead of sending to all.
It can forward multiple packets at
the same time. A switch does not
forward the signals which are noisy
or corrupted. It drops such signals
and asks the sender to resend it. Figure 10.12: Cables connected to a network switch
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Notes 10.4.6 Router
A router (Figure 10.13) is a network device that can
receive the data, analyse it and transmit it to other
networks. A router connects a local area network to the
internet. Compared to a hub or a switch, a router has
advanced capabilities as it can analyse the data being
carried over a network, decide/alter how it is packaged,
and send it to another network of a different type. For
example, data has been divided into packets of a certain
size. Suppose these packets are to be carried over a
different type of network which cannot handle bigger
packets. In such a case, the data is to be repackaged
as smaller packets and then sent over the network by
a router.
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pass the data packet to the gateway, which then routes
it to the destination using the best possible route.
PC 4 PC 5 PC 4 PC 5
PC 1 PC 2 PC 3 PC 1 PC 2 PC 3
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10.5.1 Mesh Topology
In this networking topology, each communicating
device is connected with every other device in the
network as shown in Figure 10.15. Such a network can
handle large amounts of traffic since multiple nodes
can transmit data simultaneously. Also, such networks
are more reliable in the sense that even if a node gets
down, it does not cause any break in the transmission
of data between other nodes. This topology is also
more secure as compared to other topologies because
each cable between two nodes carries different data.
However, wiring is complex and cabling cost is high in
creating such networks and there are many redundant
or unutilised connections.
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Bus
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Figure 10.19: A hybrid topology
Activity 10.4
Explore how can you
find the MAC 10.6.2 IP Address
address of your
computer
IP address, also known as Internet Protocol address,
system. is also a unique address that can be used to uniquely
identify each node in a network. The IP addresses
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are assigned to each node in a network that uses the
Internet Protocol for communication. Thus, if we know Do mobile phones
a computer’s IP address, we can communicate with have a MAC address?
that computer from anywhere in the world. However, Is it different from
unlike MAC address, IP address can change if a node the IMEI number of
mobile phones?
is removed from one network and connected to another
network.
The initial IP Address called version 4 (IPV4 in short),
is a 32 bit numeric address, written as four numbers
separated by periods, where each number is the decimal
(base-10) representation for an 8-bit binary (base-2)
number and each can take any value from 0 - 255. A
sample IPV4 address looks like:
192:168:0:178
With more and more devices getting connected to
the Internet, it was realised that the 32-bit IP address
will not be sufficient as it offers just under 4.3 billion
unique addresses. Thus, a 128 bits IP address, called IP
version 6 (IPV6 in short) was proposed. An IPv6 address
is represented by eight groups of hexadecimal (base-16)
numbers separated by colons. A sample IPV6 address
looks like:
2001:CDBA:0000:0000:0000:0000:3257:9652
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The Internet today is a widespread network, and its
influence is no longer limited to the technical fields of
computer communications. It is being used by everyone
in the society as is evident from the increasing use of
online tools for education, creativity, entertainment,
You are encouraged socialisation, and e-commerce.
to take up any area
of concern where 10.7.1 The World Wide Web (WWW)
you think IoT can be The World Wide Web (WWW) or web in short, is an
immensely beneficial ocean of information, stored in the form of trillions
and discuss it with
your peers. An of interlinked web pages and web resources. The
example for the same resources on the web can be shared or accessed
can be preventing through the Internet.
road accidents.
Earlier, to access files residing in different
computers, one had to login individually to each
computer through the Internet. Besides, files in
different computers were sometimes in different
formats, and it was difficult to understand each other’s
files and documents. Sir Tim Berners-Lee — a British
computer scientist invented the revolutionary World
Wide Web in 1990 by defining three fundamental
technologies that lead to creation of web:
• HTML – HyperText Markup Language. It is a language
which is used to design standardised Web Pages so
that the Web contents can be read and understood
from any computer. Basic structure of every webpage
is designed using HTML.
• URI – Uniform Resource Identifier. It is a unique
address or path for each resource located on the
web. It is also known as Uniform Resource Locator
(URL). Every page on the web has a unique URL.
Examples are: https://www.mhrd.gov.in,http://
www.ncert.nic.in,http://www.airindia.in, etc. URL
is sometimes also called web address. However,
a URL is not only the domain name. It contains
other information that completes a web address,
as depicted below:
Domain Name
http://www.ncert.nic.in/textbook/textbook.htm
URL
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Many people confuse the web with the Internet. Notes
The Internet as we know is the huge global network
of interconnected computers, which may or may not
have any file or webpage to share with the world. The
web on the other hand is the interlinking of collection
of Webpages on these computers which are accessible
over the Internet. WWW today gives users access to a
vast collection of information created and shared by
people across the world. It is today the most popular
information retrieval system
wikipedia.org 198.35.26.96
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name of each web server to its corresponding IP address
is called domain name resolution. It is done through
a server called DNS server. Thus, when we enter a
URL on a web browser, the HTTP protocol approaches
a computer server called DNS server to obtain the IP
address corresponding to that domain name. After
getting the IP address, the HTTP protocol retrieves the
information and loads it in our browser.
In Figure 10.20, an example is shown in which the
HTTP requests a DNS server for corresponding IP addss,
and the server sends back an IP address.
DNS root servers
User
are named using
alphabets A through
M for the first
13 letters of the
alphabet. Ten of 164.100.60.233
these servers are HTTP in DNS
Browser www.ncert.nic.in Server
in the US, one in
London, one in
Stockholm, and
one in Japan.
The organisation
Figure 10.20: Request of IP address corresponding to domain name
Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority A DNS server maintains a database of domain names
(IANA) keeps this
list of DNS root and their corresponding IP addresses. To understand
servers. how the domain name resolution works, we have to
understand how and where the DNS servers are kept.
The DNS servers are placed in hierarchical order. At
the top level, there are 13 servers called root servers.
Then below the root servers there are other DNS servers
at different levels. A DNS server may contain the IP
address corresponding to a domain or it will contain
the IP address of other DNS servers, where this domain
entry can be searched.
Summary
• A computer network is an interconnection among
two or more computers or computing devices.
• A computer network allows computers to share
data and resources among each other.
• Networking devices are used to connect multiple
computers in different settings.
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Notes
• In a communication network, each device that is
a part of a network and that can receive, create,
store or send data to different network routes is
called a node.
• Based on the geographical area covered and data
transfer rate, computer networks are broadly
categorised into LAN (Local Area Network), MAN
(Metropolitan Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area
Network).
• LAN is a network that connects a variety of nodes
placed at a limited distance ranging from a single
room, a floor, an office or a campus having one or
more buildings in the same premises.
• Ethernet is a set of rules that decides how
computers and other devices connect with each
other through cables in a LAN.
• Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is an extended
form of LAN which covers a larger geographical
area like a city or a town.
• Cable TV network or cable based broadband
internet services are examples of MAN.
• Wide Area Network (WAN) connects computers
and other LANs and MANs, which are spread
across different geographical locations of a
country or in different countries or continents.
• The Internet is the largest WAN that connects
billions of computers, smartphones and millions
of LANs from different continents.
• Modem stands for ‘MOdulator DEModulator’,
is a device used for conversion between electric
signals and digital bits.
• Ethernet card, also known as Network Interface
Card (NIC card in short) is a network adaptor
used to set up a wired network.
• Each NIC has a MAC address, which helps in
uniquely identifying the computer on the network.
• A repeater is an analog device that regenerate the
signals on the cables to which it is connected.
• A switch is a networking device used to connect
multiple computers or communicating devices.
• A router is a network device that can receive the
data, analyse it and transmit it to other networks.
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Notes • Gateway serves as the entry and exit point of a
network, as all data coming in or going out of a
network must first pass through the gateway in
order to use routing paths.
• The arrangement of computers and other
peripherals in a network is called its topology.
• Common network topologies are Mesh, Ring, Bus,
Star and Tree.
• In mesh topology each communicating device is
connected with every other device in the network.
• In ring topology, each node is connected to two
other devices, one each on either side.
• In bus topology, a single backbone wire called
bus is shared among the nodes, which makes it
cheaper and easy to maintain.
• In star topology, each communicating device is
connected to a central networking device like a
hub or a switch.
• In tree or hybrid topology, there are multiple
branches and each branch can have one or more
basic topologies like star, ring and bus.
• The MAC address, also known as the physical or
hardware address, is a unique permanent value
associated with a network adapter called a NIC.
It is used to physically identify a machine on the
network.
• IP address, also known as Internet Protocol
address, is a unique address that can be used to
uniquely identify each node in a network.
• Unlike MAC address, IP address can change if a
node is removed from one network and connected
to another network.
• The Internet is the global network of computing
devices.
• The World Wide Web (WWW) or web in short, is an
ocean of information, stored in the form of trillions
of interlinked web pages and web resources.
• Sir Tim Berners-Lee — a British computer
scientist invented the revolutionary World Wide
Web in 1990.
• HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is a
language which is used to design standardised
Web Pages so that the Web contents can be read
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and understood from any computer. Notes
• URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) or URL (Uniform
Resource Locator) is a unique address or path for
each resource located on the web.
• HTTP – The HyperText Transfer Protocol is a set of
rules which is used to retrieve linked web pages
across the web. The more secure and advanced
version is HTTPS.
• Each computer server hosting a website or web
resource is given a name against its IP address.
These names are called the Domain names or
hostnames.
• Conversion of the domain name of each web server
to its corresponding IP address is called domain
name resolution. It is done through a server called
DNS server.
Exercise
1. Expand the following:
a) ARPANET
b) MAC
c) ISP
d) URI
2. What do you understand by the term network?
3. Mention any two main advantages of using a network of
computing devices.
4. Differentiate between LAN and WAN.
5. Write down the names of few commonly used networking
devices.
6.
Two universities in different States want to transfer
information. Which type of network they need to use for
this?
7. Define the term topology. What are the popular network
topologies?
8. How is tree topology different from bus topology?
9. Identify the type of topology from the following:
a) Each node is connected with the help of a single cable.
b) Each node is connected with central switching
through independent cables.
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Notes 10. What do you mean by a modem? Why is it used?
11. Explain the following devices:
a) Switch
b) Repeater
c) Router
d) Gateway
e) NIC
12. Draw a network layout of star topology and bus
topology connecting five computers.
13. What is the significance of MAC address?
14. How is IP address different from MAC address?
Discuss briefly.
15. What is DNS? What is a DNS server?
16. Sahil, a class X student, has just started understanding
the basics of Internet and web technologies. He is a bit
confused in between the terms “World Wide Web” and
“Internet”. Help him in understanding both the terms
with the help of suitable examples of each.
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