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Computer Networks

8

8.1 INTRODUCTION

The greatest breakthrough in technology and communication over the past 20 years has been the
development and advancement of the computer network. From emailing a friend, to online bill
payment, to downloading data from the internet, to e-commerce, networking has made our world
much smaller and forever changed the way we communicate.

Network provides salient features which have made our life easy and comfortable, be it sending an
email, withdrawing money from an ATM machine, online railway or airline reservation, or sharing
audio and video files. Apart from these, the most extensively-used feature is the Print command
sent from a computer to get a printout from a printer attached to some other computer. All this
involves a network.
It is the network that connects various computers to each other and handles a large volume of data.

Fig. 8.1: A Computer Network

8.2 COMPUTER NETWORK—A BRIEF OVERVIEW

Several devices connected to each other for reliable communication/transfer of data constitute a
network. A network can consist of a computer, a fax machine, a printer, a camera, a cell phone, etc. A
collection of interconnected computers is called a Computer Network. Two computers or devices
are said to be interconnected if they are capable of sharing and exchanging information with each
other by following a protocol (set of rules).

CTM: A computer network is a collection of interconnected computers and other devices to share data and
other resources (hardware and software resources).