In this tutorial you will learn get the basic introduction to network devices such as nic adapters, routers, hubs, switches, modems, communication cables, lan/wan routers, gateway and other devices. A network is consists of a larger number of the communication devices. The simplest device that is used in the communication is the NIC adapter which is attached with the every computer in a network. If you want to build a LAN, you will need to have computers, hubs, switches, network adapters, UTP/STP cables, routers, internal/external modems, connectors, cable testers and clipping tool.
On the other hand if you need to build WAN, you will need to have routers, switches, dedicated or leased telephone lines such as ISDN lines, frame relay connection and other types of wan communication connections.
There are different communication mediums such as Ethernet cables, copper wire, coaxial cable, fiber optic cables, leased telephone lines and ever air is also a communication medium for the satellite communication. The most common networking medium is the LAN is the Ethernet cable (UTP/STP), which is used in the star topology. Hub is a central device of a network and every computer in a network is directly connected with the hub.
If the hub fails to work, the communication between the computers stops till the hub again starts working. Hub broadcasts the data to its every port, and then finding the destined computer, the data sent toward it. The switch is an advance form of the hub similar in functions but the advanced switches has a switching table in them. A advanced switch stores the MAC address of every attached computer and the data is only sent to the destined computer, unlike the hubs where data is sent to all ports. A router is a key device in the internet communication and wan communication system. A router has software called routing table and the source and destination addresses are stored in the routing table.
A router connects two logically and physically different networks. Router finds the IP address of the next hop (next router) and the data is sent toward it and so on. The well known routers developing companies are Cisco systems, Nortel, DLink and others. Every ISP, banks, corporate offices and multinational companies use routers for LAN and WAN communications and communication in their private networks. A gateway can be device or software in a network.
A gateway device connects the LAN with the internet. A gateway is directly exposed to the internet so it should be securely configured and in and out traffic should be monitored. If you are using DSL connection, you must need a DSL modem in your network. The telephone line is connected with the DSL modem and UTP/STP cable attaches your computer with the DSL modem. Modems are the devices that are used to modulate and demodulate the data. They convert analogue signals to digital and digital signals to analogue so that signals can travel on the telephone lines.
There are certain types of the cables that are used to connect two or more computers in a network. Fiber optic cable acts as a backbone between the ISPs and corporate offices. Data travels at the speed of light on the fiber optic cables. The cost and the installation cost of the fiber optic cable is very high but it is becoming very popular in the home networking and LANs also. In the local area networking, 10baseT/CAT5 cable is most commonly in use.
A server is a computer in network that provides services to the client computers such as logon requests processing, files access and storage, internet access, printing access and many other types of services. Servers are mostly equipped with extra hardware such as plenty of external memory (RAM), more data store capacity (hard disks), high processing speed and other features.