Computer Networking: A Breakdown

Beyond your wireless router is a complex engineering discipline known as computer networking. This field of study is concerned with the communication between computer systems or devices using routers, protocols, and networking over the public internet using documents known as RFCs.

A computer network may be any set of computers or devices connected to one another exchanging data and information. There are three main types of networks:

• A Local Area Network (LAN)- described as a small network constrained to a small geographic area.
• A Wide Area Network (WAN)- typically a larger network that covers a large geographic area.
• Wireless LAN & WAN- a more popular approach to computer networking that involves communication over small or large geographic areas using electromagnetic waves to communicate between nodes without the use of cables.

Networks can be viewed both physically and logically. A physical perspective involves location, the actual cables, and network elements such as routers, bridges, and application layer gateways to connect the physical media. A logical perspective involves subnets, or maps of the physical media. Many campuses of buildings may use a set of LAN cables in each building to create a common subnet, using virtual LAN (VLAN) technology.

There are also distinguishing characteristics of networks which may describe them as an intranet or extranet. An intranet is a community of interest under a private administration which requires special access by users, which are most commonly employees of an enterprise. Intranets do not necessarily need to be connected to the internet. An extranet is the extension of an intranet which allows secure communications to users outside of the intranet community.